The questionable Portuguese link to potatoes | Economic Times

The Indian Council for Agricultural Research’s Central Coastal Agricultural Research Institute (ICAR-CCARI) plans to promote potato cultivation in Goa with varieties specially bred for hot and humid conditions. This is a response to last year’s lockdown, when closure of state borders made vegetables scarce, making Goa realise how much it depends on produce grown outside the state.This also shows that potatoes historically did not grow in Goa, which counters the theory that the Portuguese introduced them to India. The ‘Portuguese introduced potatoes’ theory is commonly stated in articles on food in India, yet seems unlikely. Potatoes originated in the Andes and require cool climates (creation of heat-tolerant varieties is a recent development).Portugal’s presence in South America was in Brazil and most of its other colonies were in similarly tropical areas. This suited plants that the Portuguese seem to have spread, like chillies, cashews and chikoos, but not potatoes. The colonial power that encountered potatoes in the Andes was Spain, and they spread from there to places like the Netherlands (then a part of the Spanish empire), where they flourished. They might even have reached China via the Manila galleons which took New World commodities across the Pacific to Asia. 87234480Spain had little contact with India though, and there are well-documented examples of the British introducing potatoes in India, for example, by Frederick Young in the 'Doon Valley' in the 1820s.So why is this Portuguese introduction theory so persistent? It seems to stem from one reference by John Fryer, a British surgeon who travelled to South India in the late 17th century. In 'A New Account of East India and Persia' (1698), he describes a trip down the west coast of India, stopping in Portuguese Goa and then the Canatick (Karnataka) coast where he writes of inhabitants that “potatoes are their usual banquet”.Rebecca Earle, in 'Feeding the People', her history of the politics of potato growing, argues that “by then, potatoes were common enough in the surgeon’s home city of London for us to be confident in his identification”. But this doesn’t take into account the wide variety of tubers eaten along the west coast of India, like Coleus, Colocasia and several yams.Some look like potatoes — especially when seen in muddy heaps in markets — and even taste similar, so it is possible that Fryer just made a mistake. And repeated and unthinking quoting turned this questionable observation into an almost accepted fact. 87234451This matters not just for historical accuracy, but also because it diverts attention from the one important tuber that the Portuguese really may have helped spread. Sweet potatoes grow easily in tropical areas, and are very important nutritionally, with high levels of vitamin A and beta-carotenes. They also have edible, delicious leaves, unlike potatoes, whose leaves are toxic. This resulted in them spreading across the world in multiple ways, for example with the Polynesian mariners who crossed the Pacific before the advent of Western colonial powers.But the Portuguese may have played a role too, as seen in how batatas, their original term for sweet potatoes, became common across the world. Confusion between the two tubers resulted in the term being appropriated by potatoes — even the Portuguese now call sweet potatoes batata doce. But this marginalisation of sweet potatoes was unfortunate since it has resulted in them being undervalued, despite their nutritional importance and greater suitability for cultivation across most of India.Potatoes have a shorter growing season and then require refrigeration through the rest of the year, while sweet potatoes just grow all the time. In Goa, they are a traditional crop, but their consumption seems to be diminishing. Rather than trying to push potatoes, it would make more sense for ICAR-CCARI to encourage sweet potatoes as a crop better suited to the state, and with roots that really do go back to the Portuguese.