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A Mr. Seamus Flanagan of Chicago Illinois asks..."Dear Mr. Knowitall, I LOVE Potatoes! And I Love all things Irish. Could you please give me some Info about the relationship between the two"?
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Dear Seamus, Of Course I can!!
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1.) No one in Ireland or most of Europe even heard of potatoes before the 1600's. Spuds, which originated in South America, arrived via The Spanish and English explorers.
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2.) Potatoes grew prolifically in the rocky craggy Irish soil. You could grow enough spuds on a half acre to feed a family of 6 for a year!
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3.) You can live on potatoes! All you need is to add a little Butter-Milk or fish, or maybe some cabbage, for fat and some vitamin A.
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4.) Although very nutricious, a working man needs about 14 pounds a day to stay healthy and active if they are all you are eating.
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5.) By the 1840's, about 3 Million people were eating potatoes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!
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6.) Spuds kept people so healthy, that the poor produced more babies than ever before. 50 years after the potato was introduced, Ireland's population DOUBLED!
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7.) By 1845, one third of all the tilled soil in Ireland was devoted to the potato.
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8.) In 1845, a fungus named PHYTOPHTHORA INFESTANS, attacked the potato crop. Leaves turned black, new growths withered, and those already full grown, turned soft, black, and smelly. Those 3 Million poor folks depending on just spuds to eat...Suddenly had nothing! Other crops grew just fine, but the poor could not afford them!
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9.) The Irish Potato Famine lasted to about 1851.
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10.) No one knows for sure how many Irish died as a result of The Famine, but historians put the figure as high as 1.1 Million people. Another 1 million or so left the country. Many for the United States.
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Good Question Seamus, I hoped that I gave you some useful information.
But all this Spud Talk has made Mr. Knowitall grow weary...
I bid you Adieu.....
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