Potatoes have had to tackle great difficulty before they could reach our dinner tables.

Brought to Europe after the discovery of America, they were only grown as an ornamental plant, with tubers being given to animals for food. Their rather plain appearance did not work in their favour, but the clergy also helped increase scepticism about this food. In fact, potatoes were not mentioned in the Bible, which they thought was a clear sign that God did not want people to eat them. But it did not end there, as priests even associated them with witchcraft and the Devil.

Fortunately, a French pharmacist and agronomist by the name of Antoine Augustin Parmentier understood the value of this food and devised a stratagem to encourage people to eat potatoes. He asked the king to send soldiers to protect the fields where they were grown, so people would think they were a precious food to be kept safe. The French started to organise real night raids to steal them and began to eat them with pride.

Who knows what would have happened to potatoes if it wasn’t for Mr Parmentier!