Present it seems that potatoes were on our menu from everlasting. But it is clear that they came from South America from mountains the Andes in today’s Peru. The ancestry of Incas had been growing them more before 6 000 years.

Mountains the Andes in South America, original country of potatoes
(taken from http://centralia.ctc.edu/~dmartin/Bot250/readings/u2-1.html)

The Peruvians were proud of their potatoes. They produced whistles in their shape for children and decorated cooking dishes by the potato pattern too. The importance of potatoes reflects also this that the today’s ancestry of the Incas has got more than 1000 names for potatoes.

They were discovered for the Europeans in years of American conquests of Spanish conquerors in the first third of the 16^th century, when they were discovered in Ecuador.From here potatoes were spread in Spain, Italy, and France in the half of 16^th century and rather later they appeared also in the British Isles.

First they were used like drugs too: Fillip II sent the pope Pius IV potatoes bulbs in 1565 and also the hospital in Seville bought them for their patients.

The advice of England Sir Francis Drake finished humorously who took potatoes in 1586 and sent several bulbs his friend and recommended him to plant them. The first English potato junket failed: instead underground bulbs were prepared over ground green bulbs. They were fried on butter, poured with sugar and cinnamon and in spite of that their appetite was terrible. Scots deprecated potatoes too, because they were mentioned in the Bible. But for poor mountainous countries of Ireland they were a salvation.

In Bohemia they appeared in the 17^th century in the monastic garden of Irish Franciscans in Prague At Hybern`s. Some aristocrats got them from the Netherlands and from Germany. Since this time the older Czech name has been coming: the earth apple.

The potatoes came by real economical importance in our country only in the 18^th century. At that time there were eaten 15 kg of potatoes per head per annum.

At the time of Marie Terezie was imported the fair amount of potatoes from Prussia. People called them ” brambury” according Branibor at that time, from where maybe was created today’s name ” brambory”. At that time they glozed over beggary and hungry in often wars and at times of the corn failure. In early the 19^th century the first Czech cultivars were cultivated. More than 30 old folk names argue about the fame of potatoes, from which a lot of them have been using till present, especially in Moravia.

There are gathered about 300 tons potatoes on the fields of the whole world at present.

They are except bread the most productive source of energy. In spite of the fact that the common idea that we can after potatoes very easy become fat, it is not quite on spot because one enough large potato has got so energy like some smaller apple or orange [the same portion of dumplings performs three times more energy].

Potatoes contains farina and ascorbic acid first, they are the cheapest source of ascorbic acid on our market. They are economical important raw material, fundamental pasture and raw material for the production of farina and spirit.