New Hampshire Was The First State In History To Plant This Popular Vegetable

Sorry Idaho there's nothing you can do about it because our state was first.

I don't know about you, but this Irish lad grew up eating a lot of these in various ways.  Mashed, steamed, baked, twice baked, home fried and more ways than I can remember.  Did you knowthe potato, is the world’s fourth largest food crop, following rice, wheat, and corn. The Inca Indians in Peru were the first to cultivate potatoes around 8,000 BC to 5,000 B.C.

In 1536 Spanish Conquistadors conquered Peru, discovered the flavors of the potato, and carried them to Europe.

According to an online article published by MSN, New Hampshire was the very first US state to plant potatoes in a field in Londonderry in 1719!  In the 1840's, a major outbreak of potato blight, a plant disease, swept through Europe, wiping out the potato crop in many countries.

The Irish working class lived largely on potatoes and when the blight reached Ireland, their main staple food disappeared. This famine left many poverty-stricken families with no choice but to struggle to survive or emigrate out of Ireland.

Over the course of the famine, almost one million people died from starvation or disease. Another one million people left Ireland, mostly for Canada and the United States.

Oh, I forgot to mention my favorite potato incarnation: French Fries!