Potatoes are a great food. They can be served either as a main dish, baked and topped with chili and cheese, or as a side dish.

There are literally hundreds of potato recipes to be found all over the internet. They aren’t just for fries and chips anymore.

Much maligned for high starch content, they are often overlooked in their fiber content, with a medium size potato with the skin containing 15% of the Recommended Daily Allowance, or RDA. It also contains 28% of the RDA of Vitamin C, 12% of the RDA of Magnesium, and 26% of the RDA of Potassium, amongst a variety of other vitamins and minerals.

Potatoes can be as simple or fancy as you desire. They can be oven baked and served with just a little butter and salt, or served in a Potato Gallete with Bacon and Caviar.

What many people don’t realize is that Clam Chowder, a favorite comfort food, is really a potato based soup with clams and other ingredients thrown in to add texture.

The History of Potato

While most people associate potatoes with America, where it was planted in Idaho as early as 1838, it was actually first discovered in Peru between 3000 and 2000 BC.

Potatoes provided the primary source of energy for the Incas, their predecessors, as well as their Spanish successors. In Peru above 10,000 feet altitude, tubers exposed to the cold night air turned into chuno, or freeze dried potatoes.

When kept in permanently frozen underground storehouses, chuño can be stored for years with no loss of nutritional value.

The Spanish fed chuño to the silver miners who produced vast wealth in the 16th century for the Spanish government. It was an inexpensive and easy way to feed hungry miners, much as it is in today’s society.

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