The
tattie has been both a curse and a blessing in the history of
Scotland as it has to Ireland. Many individuals have been thankful
for its productivity, but that very productivity allowed many
to be dispossessed of their land. Landlords calculated that a
cheap supply of labour (for kelp burning etc.) could be maintained
on ever smaller holdings, with fertility maintained by the, seriously
miss-named, 'lazy bed' system. The result was the poor became
dependent on a single intensive staple crop with the consequence
of the so called potato famines 1847 to 1857 the mortality was
not as high in Scotland as it was in Ireland, for several reasons
including less mono-crop dependency, but it was still a major
contributory cause of the clearances as well as of economic migration.
When it first came to Europe many viewed the plant
with grave suspicion as it was so obviously related to some of
the most notoriously poisonous species. In 1748 the French Parliament
had actually forbidden the cultivation of the potato believing
amongst other things that it caused leprosy. After the apothecary
Antoine-Augustin Parmentier (1737-1813), who had been fed potatoes
as a P.O.W. of the Prussians, campaigned on its behalf the Paris
Faculty of Medicine declared potatoes edible in 1772. However
there was still a widespread objection to it as food and Parmentier
began a very modern style of P.R. campaign with a series of publicity
stunts for which he remains famous. French acceptance was probably
finally achieved after failed harvests in 1785 and the siege of
the first Paris commune in 1795, on both occasions the tattie
saved many from starvation. To avoid disappointment in restaurants,
remember the classic dish called "parmentier" is basically
like 'shepherd's pie' or 'stovies' and 'Potage Parmentier' is
'leek and tattie soup'.
In my own little world the day of the year when
the first new-potatoes are dug is definitely a red letter day.
Usually by then we have succumbed and bought a couple of pounds
of 'Jerseys' from the shop and inevitably been hugely disappointed.
The degrading of our food by commerce shows most clearly in the
most humble and ubiquitous of products. The domesticated potato
has literally thousands of varieties, although the shopper in
the average supermarket could be forgiven for not realising this.
It often seems to me that the differences between one variety
of potato and another vastly exceed the difference in taste between
different varieties of wine grape yet we are often much better
informed about them.
All potato tubers contain toxic glycoalkaloids mostly
solanine and chaconine (< 5 mg/100 g of tuber fresh weight)
pre- or post-harvest stress factors can cause a rapid increase
in these toxic glycoalkaloids which have insecticidal and fungicidal
properties. The levels also vary according to variety and growing
conditions and are more concentrated in the skin and outer layer
of the tuber. Our main protection against them is that they taste
bitter.
There have been many reported cases of human poisonings (sometimes
fatal) due to the ingestion of greened (the green itself is harmless
chlorophyll but indicates the tuber has been stressed by light
exposure) or otherwise damaged potatoes. Based on limited human
data, an intake of 3-6 mg TGA/kg bw is considered a potentially
lethal dose for humans, and >1 to 3 mg TGA/kg bw is considered
a toxic dose for humans. Children may be more sensitive than adults.
That said my grandmother had a positive addiction to green potatoes
(she left them on the window sill to 'ripen') she was 95 when
she died. One of her fortune telling traveller acquaintances had
predicted she would live to 96 so perhaps they did shorten her
life.
The European Cultivated Potato Database is the result
of a five year collaboration between participants in 8 European
Union countries and 5 East European Countries. The participants
included national gene banks, research institutes, private breeders
and NGOs.
Non-medical uses of potatoes
The tubers are still a major staple
of most peoples' diet. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization,
the worldwide production of potatoes in 2005 was 322 million metric
tons which makes it the fifth highest production crop in the world.
A close relative of the nightshades like all the Solanum species
most parts the potato plant are toxic including the tubers if
green or sprouting, deaths have occurred.
The tubers are a source of starch that is used in
sizing cotton and to make industrial alcohol etc. It also has
many other uses in industry. Ripe potato juice is an excellent
cleaner of silks, cottons and woollens. The water in which potatoes
have been boiled can be used to clean silver and to restore a
shine to furniture. Emollient and cleansing face masks are made
from potatoes; these are used to treat hard, greasy and wrinkled
skins. The potato is a good source of biomass. When boiled with
weak sulphuric acid, potato starch is changed into glucose and
this can then be fermented into alcohol.
Catriona in particular: Is a floury potato good
for tattie scones.
Medicinal uses of potatoes
Antibacterial, Antifungal, Antiphlogistic,
Antispasmodic, Cardiotonic, Hypotensive, Poultice.
Definitons
of medical actions
Potatoes have a number of medicinal virtues. A juice
made from the tubers, when taken in moderation, can be helpful
in the treatment of peptic ulcers, bringing relief from pain and
acidity. Excessive doses of potato juice can be toxic - do not
drink the juice of more than one large potato per day. A poultice
has been made from boiling potatoes in water. This is applied
as hot as can be borne to rheumatic joints, swellings, skin rashes,
haemorrhoids etc. Peeled but uncooked potatoes have been pounded
in a mortar and then applied cold as a soothing plaster to burns
and scalds. Potato skins are used in India to treat swollen gums
and to heal burns. The tubers contain very small quantities of
atropine alkaloids. One property of these alkaloids is the reduction
of digestive secretions, including acids produced in the stomach.
The root and leaf diffusates of growing potato plants possess
cardiotonic activity. Dried ethanol extracts of above-ground parts
of the plant show marked hypotensive and myotropic action and
a spasmolytic and soothing effect on intestinal musculature. Ethanol
extracts of the leaves have antifungal properties, active against
Phytophthora infestans (the cause of potato late blight). The
leaves, seeds, and tuber extracts show antimicrobial activity
against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. The leaves are
antispasmodic.
Sources:
Plants For A Future,
www.pfaf.org/index.html
The European Cultivated Potato Database, it
is searchable at http://www.europotato.org/menu.php
it has information on 4,120 cultivated varieties. The database
for related Solanum species (wild and primitive species). Is downloadable
as a Access file from http://www.genebank.nl/research/eupotato/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine-Augustin_Parmentier
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato
SOLANINE AND CHACONINE First draft prepared by Dr T. Kuiper-Goodman
and Dr P.S. Nawrot, Bureau of Chemical Safety, Health and Welfare
Canada http://www.inchem.org/documents/jecfa/jecmono/v30je19.htm
