Culinary Wealth
I’ve always been a lover of the Pope. In Venezuela, the Sunday magazine of the El Nacional newspaper, at a section of gastronomy are asked to local celebrities, what can not miss in your fridge?: in my case, responding to this question, in refrigerator in our House, never lack the Pope. We adore the potato dishes; We eat them in salads, as aperitif, accompanying the main dish and even as a main dish, when it is prepared as part of a protein recipe. The Pope is comparable to wheat, corn and rice, i.e., a primary resource for feeding the world population. Along with maize constituted the basic food of the inhabitants of the pre-Columbian world. The mayas and Aztecs more inclined to corn, the inhabitants of the Inca Empire to the Pope.
Possibly after the discovery of America, the Pope was the most important finding, because I helped solve, the famine of the European unfortunates. Potato (Solanum tuberosum), originates in South America about 8000 years ago next to Lake Titicaca, is 3800 meters above the sea level, in the cordillera of the Andes, South America, on the border of Bolivia and Peru, where generations of peasants have created the stunning amount of 5 500 varieties of this crop. Taken to Europe by the Spaniards in the 1570s, the potato adapted quickly to the prevailing conditions and soon became a staple of the population. England came in the year 1586, and Holland in 1610. In 1.613 the French despised the Pope, the European aristocracy appreciated the flowers of the Pope, but they believed that tubers were only suitable for pigs, until the King proved it, and made that his stewards cultivated it, becoming a staple food. In the year 1839, the Mexican Marquise ordered that after taking the soup, they would serve as a stew, made up of potatoes, chickpeas, cooked meat dish and other vegetables. Further details can be found at E Scott Mead, an internet resource.