In short
The BBC World Service podcast The Food Chain traces potato origins, global spread, shifting reputations, and current health and farming debates, using examples from a London restaurant, museums, and research.
Guests and backgrounds
AJ Shahata, senior sous chef at Fallow (central London), specializing in long-cook potato dishes; Dr Sandra Knapp, botanist and director of research at London’s Natural History Museum, studies potato genetics and evolution; Blair Richardson, runs Potatoes USA, representing farmers/processors/importers; Dr Candida Rebello, registered dietitian and assistant professor at Pennington Biomedical Research Centre (LSU), researches nutrition and diet outcomes; Julian Soto, biologist/genetic specialist at the International Potato Center in Lima, Peru, works on native potato diversity.
Key claims
Potatoes originated from an ancient hybridization event (8–10 million years ago) enabling tubers; cultivation likely began 4,000–6,000 years ago near Lake Titicaca; Spanish conquistadors spread potatoes to Europe; health studies misattribute weight/diabetes risk to potatoes rather than overall diet; potatoes can fit a healthy plan, especially with skin and cooled/reheated starch; conserving native varieties is crucial for future pest/disease resistance.
Notable examples
confit potatoes cooked 4–5 hours at very low temperature, then fried and served with onion-soubise miso emulsion; Dr Knapp’s herbarium wild potato specimens (e.g., “selenium A”); Blair’s claim that U.S. potato consumption rose ~20% since 2013 rebranding; Rebello’s trial replacing 40% meat/fish with potatoes vs beans with no weight gain and improved blood glucose; Soto’s claim that Andean farmers may conserve 100–500 varieties and that youth leaving farms threatens diversity.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOThe Rise of Potatoes in Fine Dining
1:36 to 3:00
Explore how potatoes are being elevated in modern cuisine.
“In this episode, I'm tracing the origins of one of the world's most familiar foods and how it's been misunderstood.”
Exploring Potato Varieties and Their Preparation
3:00 to 4:36
Learn about different potato varieties and how they're prepared in restaurants.
“This is the food chain from the BBC World Service.”
The Origins and Evolution of Potatoes
4:36 to 7:20
Trace the origins of potatoes and their evolution over time.
“We'll leave AJ to put the finishing touches on his luxurious potato dish while we dig into the roots of our love of potatoes.”
Global Spread and Cultural Significance of Potatoes
7:20 to 9:46
Understand how potatoes spread around the world and their impact on cultures.
“And it's a chance, it's a chance that they'll survive.”
Potatoes: A Modern Nutritional Perspective
9:46 to 12:02
Examine the contemporary view of potatoes in diets and health.
“helping drive population growth and economic activity.”
Future Trends in Potato Consumption
12:02 to 14:00
Discuss the growing trends in potato consumption and market dynamics.
“Blair says business is booming around the world, driven in part by rapid urbanisation, under demand for convenience foods and the spread of fast food giants into new markets.”
Cultural Significance of Potatoes Worldwide
14:00 to 15:44
Explore the global variations of potatoes and their cultural roles.
“Chips in Britain or fries in Japan or fries in the United States.”
Cultural Significance of Potatoes Worldwide
17:01 to 17:37
Explore the global variations of potatoes and their cultural roles.
“Ever Google a money question and end up 12 tabs deep with 12 different answers?”
Understanding Potatoes as a Healthy Food
17:45 to 20:40
Discuss the nutritional value and health implications of potatoes.
“Candida Rebello, a registered dietitian and assistant professor at the Pennington Biomedical Research Centre at Louisiana State University in the US.”
Potatoes: A Complete Food?
20:40 to 24:21
Investigate the idea of potatoes as a complete food source.
“There's no harm in eating fried, but moderation is the key.”
Show all 14 chapters
Diversity of Potatoes in Peru
24:21 to 28:00
Delve into the vast varieties of potatoes cultivated in Peru and their cultural significance.
“Candida Rebello, if you really want to taste good potato, you've got to go to Peru.”
Challenges in Potato Conservation
28:00 to 29:34
Learn about the issues facing potato preservation and farming in Peru.
“Do you see anything challenging this effort to conserve and preserve potatoes and grow and eat a wide variety?”
Culinary Creativity with Potatoes
29:34 to 30:47
Discover how chefs are exploring innovative ways to cook with potatoes.
“Back in London, there may be a narrower range of potato varieties on offer, but I'm still excited to taste restaurant chef A.J.”
Culinary Creativity with Potatoes
31:13 to 32:10
Discover how chefs are exploring innovative ways to cook with potatoes.
“You can search by insurance, specialty, identity, or availability and get started in as little as two days.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00AJ Shehata:This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.
0:30AJ Shehata:travel dollars work harder. Follow Smart Travel on your favourite podcast app. Decisions made in Washington can affect your portfolio every day. But what policy changes should investors be watching? Washington Wise is an original podcast from Charles Schwab that unpacks the stories making news in Washington right now and how they may affect your finances and portfolio. Listen at schwab.com slash Washington Wise. That's schwab.com slash Washington Wise.
1:03Sandy Knapp:Hello and welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service. I'm Ruth Alexander and I'd like to tell you about the podcast I host, The Food Chain. As the name suggests, it's all about what we eat. Each episode looks at the ideas, people and trends shaping what we put on our plates and what it takes to get the food there. From the intense pressure of professional kitchens through to the rise of meal kits and how to eat more fibre. You can listen and subscribe to the Food Chain wherever you found this podcast. In this episode, I'm tracing the origins of one of the world's most familiar foods and how it's been misunderstood.
1:54Ruth Alexander:we have the confit potato so this is an amazing dish basically we're using agria potatoes i think right now agria potatoes probably the best potato we can use uh for the season but we have these lovely potatoes we trim them down to our size like them three centimeters thick and then we trim the rest.
2:12Sandy Knapp:Potatoes are having a moment. At Fallow, a smart restaurant in central London, senior sous chef AJ Shahata has invited me into the open kitchen where potatoes aren't just a side, they star as main dishes in their own right.
2:27Ruth Alexander:Being a British restaurant, I think the potatoes are a very important ingredient for us and it's best to highlight it and show it in any way we can. So we cook these for maybe four to five hours in butter, garlic and rosemary. So four to five hours? Four to five hours.
2:40Sandy Knapp:Wow. Yes. Just at a very low temperature?
2:43Ruth Alexander:Very, very low temperature. So it kind of penetrates, gets super, super tasty and gets really soft. We then shore them down and then on service we kind of fry them,
2:52Sandy Knapp:get a nice crisp around the outside and reheat them that kind of way. So I'll get those in the fryer now for you. This is hours of potato love. Hours of potato love, I think. This is the food chain from the BBC World Service. I'm Ruth Alexander, and we're dedicating this week's episode to one of the world's most familiar foods. For years, potatoes were dismissed by some as dull, stodgy, even unhealthy. But now, from high-end restaurants to food magazines and social feeds, potatoes seem to be everywhere. So we're going to tell the story of this ancient crop, how it first conquered the world, then fell out of fashion and is now being rediscovered just as its future faces new threats.
3:37Sandy Knapp:How popular are your potato dishes?
3:39Ruth Alexander:Very, very popular. They probably sell... I reckon most tables will order one of the potato dishes, no matter what. So that goes in the fryer. Just as that's going in the fryer, we're going to start getting our sauce ready. So...
3:58Ruth Alexander:so this sauce essentially is an onion soubise miso emulsion it sounds very technical but it's essentially a white onion sauce mixed with butter and miso paste the potatoes and onion such a dreamy combination for me absolutely that so it's quite acidic i'll let you try it in a second but quite acidic and it really helps to cut through that kind of fatty buttery potato
4:19Sandy Knapp:Is there anything that doesn't go with the potato?
4:22Ruth Alexander:I don't think so. I mean, look at all the cultures around the world. I think most people who have access to a potato or some sort of root vegetable, they tend to have something going on with a potato which is kind of theirs, right? Which kind of highlights how versatile it is and how different it can be, right? Having the different kind of forms of potato. But cool. Gavs, finish that potato for me, bro.
4:42Sandy Knapp:We'll leave AJ to put the finishing touches on his luxurious potato dish while we dig into the roots of our love of potatoes.
4:52Sandy Knapp:At London's Natural History Museum, botanist and director of research Dr Sandra Knapp has been showing me some of the prized potato specimens from tropical South America, countries like Peru and Bolivia that are held here in the herbarium.
5:08Ruth Alexander:Let's see if we can find some wild potatoes in here. I think this will be the right one. and we pull out these little tables and put it on the table and then we look at these things that are pressed and dried and this is essentially what it's like is like having like your grandmother pressed flowers in the dictionary but then they get stuck on bits of paper and kept forever and ever
5:32Sandy Knapp:and where your grandma pressed flowers you press potatoes well exactly exactly
5:36Ruth Alexander:here it is this is the one I'm looking for so there's a potato called selenium A. coolly which is a tiny little tuberous, a tiny little rosette plant that grows very, very high up in the Andes. But the potatoes grow on the underground stems. So these look like roots, but they're actually underground stems. They're called stolons, which is a strange botanical word for a stem underground. And what the tuber is, is it's a starch storage organ that the plant uses to persist through difficult seasons like winters or rainy seasons or when it's not perfect for growing. So you could think of it as the plant's food store.
6:13Ruth Alexander:It is exactly the plant's food store. So the plant would die on the top and then it would then sprout again. So you can see here's
6:22Sandy Knapp:a little tuber starting right there on this underground stem. Tiny thing.
6:27Ruth Alexander:And there are 104 wild species of potatoes but we cultivate only one species which is selenum tuberosum. It's called selenum tuberosum is its scientific name. So all the varieties of potatoes that we see in the supermarket are all a single species. They've just been changed by us, by humans, to be different.
6:44Sandy Knapp:So tell me then, what's the origin story of the potato? Where did this all start?
6:49Ruth Alexander:So I was really privileged to be part of a paper which was led by my Chinese colleagues last year. So our hypothesis is that there was an ancient hybridization event which we dated using the genetics about eight to ten million years ago that involved an ancestor of the tomato lineage and an ancestor of the E. tuberosin lineage that hybridized together. They crossed and made a hybrid, which had this mix-up of genes, which eventually went on to allow tubers to be formed with the plants that survived. And it's a chance, it's a chance that they'll survive. Often hybrids die. And so that serendipitous hybridization between these two lineages gave rise to something which had this key innovation, which is the tuber, which allowed the potatoes to expand into these habitats as the Andes were rising.
7:40Ruth Alexander:So this is about the same time that the Andes themselves were rising, creating lots and lots of new habitats in slightly difficult areas which are dry and cold. So much of the Andes is dry and cold at these high elevations, which meant that a tuber was an absolutely wonderful thing to have if you were a plant, because it meant you could survive through a season that wasn't ideal. And we think that's how they explosively diversified into the Andes.
8:06Sandy Knapp:So somewhere back through the prehistoric mists of time, there was a chance encounter between an ancestor of the modern tomato and a plant with a remarkable talent for storing energy underground. And the potato was born. So when did we start farming them?
8:25Ruth Alexander:It's not clear, but the origin of the cultivation of potatoes is about, I don't know, between 4 ,000 and 6 ,000 years ago around Lake Titicaca in southern Peru. So presumably somebody found something, they thought it was great, they propagated it and off we go.
8:40Sandy Knapp:The potato is eaten all around the world, isn't it? What was the beginning of its travels around the world? Do you know how it spread from the Andes? Definitely the Spanish, the Spanish conquistadores.
8:51Ruth Alexander:When Europeans went and conquered or colonized whatever word we want to use to the indigenous peoples of South America. They weren't very popular at the beginning, though. When they very first came to Europe, they didn't tuberize properly. So they made all these teeny little tubers that were like the size of marbles. But they were also thought to be pig food and not fit for humans. Until there's a story, and I don't think it's apocryphal. I think this is something that did happen. It's Parmentier, who was in France. They were trying to introduce potatoes as food for people, for the poor. They were trying to introduce potatoes as a crop.
9:24Ruth Alexander:and nobody would eat them because they thought they were pig food, you know, not fit for humans. And so what he did is he planted a field of potatoes and posted guards around it. And the minute they posted guards around it, people thought it must be valuable and began to steal them and plant them themselves.
9:39Sandy Knapp:As potatoes spread across Europe and beyond, they became one of the most important foods on earth. They could feed large numbers of people, helping drive population growth and economic activity. The risk of that dependence was tragically seen during the Great Irish Famine of the 1840s when crops failed due to disease. Still, potatoes went on to conquer the globe.
10:04Ruth Alexander:What potatoes have done, which is amazing, is they've taken over the world. Everybody grows potatoes and it's partly because they're easy and partly because they're very nutritious and they're very good. They're very good for you, they're easy to grow. So, I mean, even places where potatoes, well, many places where potatoes are not indigenous, like Europe or China or Africa, all kinds of places grow potatoes now.
10:27Sandy Knapp:Sandra Knapp. And yet in recent decades, with the trend for high-protein, low-carb diets, the potato again developed an image problem.
10:36AJ Shehata:If you remember the image of the couch potato, that was kind of one of our problems.
10:40Sandy Knapp:This is Blair Richardson, who runs Potatoes USA, an organisation representing farmers, processors and importers. As you might expect, he's a committed potato enthusiast.
10:52AJ Shehata:Many days when I'm in my office, and since I do travel so much, I don't go to lunch, so I will often just have potato chips. But I mean, it's hard to beat a good fry. I like it just with salt, and that's it.
11:06Sandy Knapp:But when Blair joined the organisation, he says the potato was badly in need of a rebrand.
11:11AJ Shehata:Well, that was in 2013. So we were still addressing the issues from the Atkins diet of the early 2000s, late 1990s. There was still a general perception that was kind of negative about potatoes at that point in time.
11:26Sandy Knapp:Because they are carbs.
11:27AJ Shehata:Yes, they are a carb. But unlike a simple carb like sugar or sodas or things like that, a potato is a very high quality carb that has a lot of other benefits and nutritional value as well.
Read the full transcript
11:38Sandy Knapp:And he says their messaging to that point has reaped great results.
11:43AJ Shehata:Since 2013, the consumption of potatoes in the United States is up a little over 20%. I think to grow our market in the United States by 20 % in just a little over a decade is pretty phenomenal for a product that is already in everyone's kitchen and on almost every menu at restaurants around the country and around the world. So we're very proud of the fact that we've been able to change that conversation.
12:06Sandy Knapp:Blair says business is booming around the world, driven in part by rapid urbanisation, under demand for convenience foods and the spread of fast food giants into new markets.
12:17AJ Shehata:Globally, demand continues to rise for potatoes and potato products at about a 1 to 1.5 % rate every year.
12:24Sandy Knapp:How key is the expansion of fast food chains around the world?
12:28AJ Shehata:That's an automatic generator of demand because every time you put in a new McDonald's or a Mossburger or something like that, depending on which country you're in, Jollibee. They all carry fries or chips or both. But we're seeing more and more demand for fresh potatoes globally as well. Not only fresh, but also fresh refrigerated products that are just even more simple to prepare.
12:50Sandy Knapp:What are the biggest export markets for U.S. potatoes?
12:53AJ Shehata:Well, for U.S. potatoes, Mexico and Japan are the number two markets. We export about 20 to 22 percent of all of our potatoes every year throughout Asia, Central America, South America. Probably Africa is growing at a significant pace. That's driven a lot by population. Also, as the population moves into city centers, you see demand for convenience type foods like potatoes grow. We're exporting more to Europe in recent years in dehyde format, some frozen, but mostly dehyde.
13:25Sandy Knapp:Dehydrated.
13:26AJ Shehata:Yes, dehydrated, which, you know, when we're dealing with high fuel costs, you know that's the most efficient and effective way of moving food around the world is in a dehydrated form there are some amazing products now that are diced potatoes that you just add water to them and the flavoring is already there and you really can't tell the difference between a fresh potato and some of those dehydrated products today what do your statistics tell
13:50Sandy Knapp:you about how people tend to prepare them or eat them is the fried potato king in some cultures yes
13:57AJ Shehata:Yes, but not all. Certainly the fried potato is one of the predominant styles of consuming potatoes. Chips in Britain or fries in Japan or fries in the United States. Hash browns are a very common form, especially at breakfast meals or even growing in other areas.
14:17Sandy Knapp:And that perhaps gets to the heart of the potatoes image problem. Many of us like to have them deep fried, salted and covered in rich toppings. So is our renewed appetite for potatoes a healthy one? You're listening to The Food Chain from the BBC World Service.
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17:37Sandy Knapp:I'm Ruth Alexander. this week how potatoes took over the world, fell out of favour and are now staging a comeback. But are they good for you? I asked Dr. Candida Rebello, a registered dietitian and assistant professor at the Pennington Biomedical Research Centre at Louisiana State University in the US.
17:57AJ Shehata:In one word, yes. And I would qualify that by saying that it must be considered in the context of a healthy eating plan. Because if you're going to eat a whole lot of french fries, and that's going to contribute the major portion of your meal, that's not a healthy eating plan. But otherwise, potatoes, yes, they are a good food, they have a host of nutrients, they are low in energy density, which means that they contribute fewer calories for the amount of weight that's in potatoes and people tend to eat a consistent weight of food.
18:35Sandy Knapp:Do you think we perhaps don't value the potato enough as a health food?
18:39AJ Shehata:Yes, I think it's been maligned. The potato has been maligned largely because there have been a number of studies which are called epidemiological studies. So these studies ask people, what have you eaten by way of a questionnaire? And people report as to what they have eaten and based on these data they have come to the conclusion that eating potatoes will raise your blood glucose levels or eating potatoes will contribute to body weight. But these studies have not isolated the effect of potatoes per se. Often people who eat potatoes eat them with a lot of fat, sometimes as french fries, sometimes the diet as a whole is reflective of the kind of food that they eat.
19:28AJ Shehata:So they eat a lot of foods that are high in energy density. So which is what is contributing to the body weight or which is what is contributing to the rise in the blood glucose response? And it's not per se the effect of potatoes. And now there are more randomized trials showing which is needed. More is needed, but there are some studies now showing cause and effect and there is no cause. Potatoes don't cause weight gain and they don't cause type 2 diabetes.
19:56Sandy Knapp:Candida herself has led a study where 40 % of the meat or fish in participants' diets was replaced with either beans, a known healthy food, or potatoes.
20:06AJ Shehata:And there was no difference between the groups. There was no statistical difference between the two groups, the group that ate potatoes and the group that ate beans. And we gave them a large amount of potatoes. We gave them anywhere from 200 to 400 grams of potatoes a day. But they didn't gain weight and they actually lost weight in both the groups. They lost approximately 5 % of their body weight in eight weeks and their blood glucose response improved. So in the context of a healthy eating plant that's low in energy density, potatoes are a good food.
20:39Sandy Knapp:The tricky thing is so many of us do like to eat them fried, don't we?
20:43AJ Shehata:Right. There's no harm in eating fried, but moderation is the key. Fried potatoes can be a part of your diet, but it's not the sole way that you eat potatoes. And actually, as a matter of fact, potatoes contain a host of nutrients, potassium and dietary fiber. But if you eat the potatoes with their skins, that increases the dietary fiber component. Secondly, potatoes have a kind of starch that is resistant to digestion. When you cook potatoes, that starch becomes more available to your body. But if you cook the potatoes, say boil them, you cool them for 24 hours and then use the potatoes, those starches which had opened up with the cooking.
21:30AJ Shehata:Now, to explain it in lay terms, I'd say sort of congeal. Those starches all come together and then the enzymes cannot reach the starch to break it down. So that starch passes through your gastrointestinal tract undigested. so you are eating the potato but a portion of it is not being digested it's passing through your digestive tract undigested but it is a fuel for the bacteria in your gut so it contributes to help it generates something called a kind of short chain fatty acid which again is good for you
22:04Sandy Knapp:and crucially it's not going to be raising your blood sugar levels yes as high as if you hadn't cool those potatoes.
22:11AJ Shehata:Right. So the whole, the fibre content of the potato increases when you add a little bit of fat, when you add some vinegar, these are things that help to lower the glycemic, the blood glucose response.
22:26Sandy Knapp:Oh, so if you boil some potatoes or steam some potatoes and add a knob of butter on top, you're making them even healthier potentially.
22:33AJ Shehata:I would add olive oil. I would not really add butter because olive oil is a good fat, But it's fine to eat French fries, but in small portions. It cannot be that you're eating French fries every day. So indulge on occasion. Moderation is the key.
22:50Sandy Knapp:Is it true that really all of the nutrients in a potato are in the skin or just underneath it? And if you peel them, most of it is lost.
22:58AJ Shehata:No, the dietary fibre of the skin contributes to the overall dietary fibre content of the potato. But potatoes have a high in vitamin C, they have high potassium in magnesium in vitamin B6. These are all contained within the flesh of the potato.
23:14Sandy Knapp:Another thing I've heard, is it true that the potato is or almost is a complete food? Could you survive on eating just potatoes alone and nothing else? You know, you actually could.
23:28AJ Shehata:The potato, which is surprising, has very small quantities of protein, but that protein is of a very high quality. So it is equivalent to eating soybeans or eggs, for that matter. These are high quality protein. It is very little. So if you eat a large amount of potatoes, then you would get sufficient protein.
23:54Sandy Knapp:Potatoes are often left out of the vegetable category in food guidance, partly because we do like to eat them as fries or crisps. But if the potato is full of nutrients, does Candida think it can count towards your daily vegetable intake?
24:09AJ Shehata:Yes, it can. It can be included. It's been shown they don't contribute to weight gain or to raising your blood glucose response. So yes, I would say yes.
24:21Sandy Knapp:Candida Rebello, if you really want to taste good potato, you've got to go to Peru.
24:28Ruth Alexander:The flavour that appears here in the Andean region is something that in the world many people don't know. Just only when they came to Peru and tasted it, they say, oh wow, the flavour is completely different about the potato that I eat in my home.
24:44Sandy Knapp:This is Julian Soto, a biologist and genetic specialist from the International Potato Center in Lima, Peru.
24:52Ruth Alexander:In the market, you can find around five different varieties, especially breeding varieties. But in the nature, in the farm, you can identify around 4 ,000 different varieties of potato, native varieties. It's a huge diversity that is not really known by the people, common people, especially in the market.
25:14Sandy Knapp:And you spend a lot of time out there in the fields with farming communities. How many varieties would a farmer typically grow?
25:23Ruth Alexander:Yeah, native potato in farm, you can identify it from different countries here in South America, from Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and even though in Chile, You can identify in different communities, in different farmers, you can identify from 100 to 500 varieties from each farmer. Really? Yeah, they conserve different varieties. They can maintain a huge amount of varieties, around 500.
25:55Sandy Knapp:Why are farmers so committed to making this effort to grow such a wide variety of potatoes? For the farmers, for the Andean farmers, potato is just not only food.
26:06Ruth Alexander:Potato is part of his family, is part of his culture. They maintain the variety that his father maintained or his grandfather maintained. So they like to maintain all this diversity they want to conserve because it's part of his culture.
26:23Sandy Knapp:It's personal.
26:24Ruth Alexander:Yeah, it's something that they said. Potato is not only food, it's part of his family. It's also very interesting. Potato is just not only rounded. You can identify different shapes from rounded, long, oblongs, like a pineapple, for example. There are different shapes and also... Pineapple-shaped potatoes. Yeah, exactly. Pineapple, like a pineapple. They're very interesting and the farmer likes to maintain that. Also, it's like a contest between the families, you know, who have the different shapes, who have the more interesting, more curious shapes. And also the colour of the flesh. They are colour like a yellow, very, very yellow colour with spots of red or a spot of blue.
27:11Ruth Alexander:So the farmer likes to select that type of material.
27:15Sandy Knapp:And are all these many varieties of potato on the market in South America? Are people able to buy these in the shops or at market?
27:25Ruth Alexander:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. In the market, you can identify around five or 10 different native varieties that came directly to the farmers. Also, in the last 20 years or 15 years, the people start to like to eat the native varieties as a mix. People like a lot to eat this type of variety and recognise that these native varieties have special properties because they are more healthy, they are more natural and we help the farmers with buying this type of potato.
28:01Sandy Knapp:Do you see anything challenging this effort to conserve and preserve potatoes and grow and eat a wide variety? Yeah, there are special problems with the pests.
28:13Ruth Alexander:Pests like a lot this type of native varieties. But the main problem is not the plagues. The main problem right now is the young people go away to the farms. They are looking for better conditions, economical conditions. So people in the communities, in the land for planting potatoes is reducing every year. Just only all people is maintained in the farm. So that is the most important and difficult challenge that we have to concern the potato. Because if we don't have the farmers, we start losing diversity in varieties. It's a very huge problem right now.
28:53Sandy Knapp:How big a problem is that going to be for a country like Peru and the rest of the world?
28:58Ruth Alexander:The problem is if we lose all of the diversity in field, we can lose the new resistance or new ways to avoid the problems of pests and disease. So that is the potential of maintaining the diversity because in that diversity is high in the different properties that can avoid a problem of a new plague that appears. is that the potential of the genetic diversity that maintained it, because indeed will be the solution from different future problems.
29:34Sandy Knapp:Julian Soto in Peru. Back in London, there may be a narrower range of potato varieties on offer, but I'm still excited to taste restaurant chef A.J. Shahata's confit potato. Can't wait to try this.
29:54Sandy Knapp:It's so good, it's really umami, really savoury. Yes. It's so deep flavour in there. Well, that's the many hours the potato's spent in the oven, I guess, partly.
30:05Ruth Alexander:Yeah, it makes a big difference. I mean, it's a lot of work, but when you eat it all together, it all makes sense. It works very, very well.
30:13Sandy Knapp:Does the potato allow you to be creative?
30:16Ruth Alexander:I think so. I mean, I think it forces you to be creative because it's maybe an ingredient that people are so used to, They've not really thought how to make a different ingredient. So it's a challenge? It's a challenge, but I think that's what pushes it to be so versatile.
30:29Sandy Knapp:Do you think we've thought of every way to cook the potato?
30:33Ruth Alexander:Absolutely not. I mean, just at the start of the day, I saw a video where they were cooking the potato, freezing it, squeezing out the moisture, then processing it that way, and it gave a completely different texture. So I think there's still many, many different ways that we can explore potatoes.
30:47Sandy Knapp:AJ Shahata. Thanks to him and to everyone we've spoken to for this episode. From me and the rest of the team, producers Izzy Greenfield and Lexi O 'Connor, and editor Sarah Wadeson, thank you for listening. The Food Chain won't normally be here in the documentary, so if you'd like to hear more episodes, there's How to Have a Stress-Free Family Meal, or The Story of the Sandwich, and hundreds more to choose from. Search The Food Chain wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
31:42AJ Shehata:including nights and weekends. You can search by insurance, specialty, identity, or availability and get started in as little as two days. And you can cancel up to 24 hours in advance at no cost. No subscriptions, no long-term commitments. Just pay per session. Whatever challenges you're facing, Grow Therapy is here to help. Grow accepts over 100 insurance plans. Sessions average about$21 worth insurance and some pay as little as$0 depending on their plan. Visit growtherapy.com slash try now today to get started. That's growtherapy.com slash try now. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.
From the publisher
Potatoes are having a moment. Once dismissed as dull, stodgy or even unhealthy, they are now back, appearing on restaurant menus, in food magazines and across social media feeds. But the story of the potato goes back much further. Ruth Alexander traces the journey of one of the world’s most familiar foods. From its origins millions of years ago to its place in today’s global food system. AJ Shehata, senior sous chef at Fallow restaurant in London explains why the potato forces chefs to get creative. At the Natural History Museum, botanist Sandy Knapp explains how the potato may have been born from a chance encounter between two wild plants in the Andes, an event that made it possible for potatoes to grow underground and spread across new environments. Potatoes USA president Blair Richardson explains how demand continues to grow worldwide, and how the industry is working to reshape the potato’s image. Nutrition scientist Candida Rebello shares research suggesting potatoes may be far more beneficial, and more misunderstood, than many people think. And, at the International Potato Centre in Peru, scientist Julian Soto works with farmers to conserve thousands of native potato varieties. In the Andes, potatoes are not just a crop, they are part of culture, identity and family life.
