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This week’s Throwback Thursday celebrates the modest potato. The potato harvest typically takes place in late August through September. This photo from the Leeland Sudlow collection demonstrates how potatoes were dug in 1936. The tractor pulled a potato digger, which had a plow type of nose set into the soil. The potatoes, soil and other debris went up a conveyor, which the knocked off the soil still attached to the tuber. The debris and soil fell through the openings in conveyor. The vegetables tumbled off the back to the ground, to wait for people to pick them up. 

A versatile food, potatoes are “rooted” in history. The earliest evidence of domesticated potatoes exists from around 5,000 years ago, in Peru, South America. Spanish conquistadors encountered this tuber in 1537 and later brought it back to Europe. Records indicate that potatoes entered Europe in the late 1500s, by Spain about 1570, and into the British Isles between 1588-1593. They were probably left-over food from the voyages from the Andes that were planted. Despite concerns of the safety of the vegetable because falls into the nightshade family, the tuber’s popularity gained. Today, they have found production on six of the seven continents. With various uses from alcohol to fries to salad, potatoes have rooted themselves in our stomachs and in history. 

SDAHM Sudlow Collection 10-8-1