From historian Andrew Martin at Medium:
The diligence of an 18th century French scientist was instrumental in making potatoes one of the most popular sources of food in the world
Potatoes are one of the most versatile and popular foods in the world. From french fries to mashed potatoes, and many concoctions in between, tubers are eaten in great quantities around the world. However, they might not enjoy such popularity if it wasn’t for a Frenchman named Antoine-Augustin Parmentier, who spent his life trying to convince people that they were good eating; first by education and then by trickery.
Born in 1737, Parmentier was a French agronomist and pharmacist who loved the study of plants and science. He did extensive work regarding nutrition, helping pioneer extracting sugar from beets, studied methods to conserve food like refrigeration, opened a bread-making school and was an early proponent of the smallpox vaccine.
The potato is what the scientist eventually became best known for. It may not have even crossed his mind to study as a food source if not for a stint he served in a Prussian prison as a prisoner of war in the Seven Years War after he was captured performing his duty as an army pharmacist. It was behind bars that he and other prisoners were fed a regular potatoes mash. Up until that time, the French regarded potatoes as hog feed, but instead of it being inedible slop as he might have assumed, he was intrigued by the nutritional value, not to mention they were pleasingly palatable.
Potatoes came to Europe by way of the Spanish from South America in the early 16th century. However, they didn’t catch on outside of Spain and Ireland, other than being a source of food for livestock. France even took the step of outlawing potatoes in 1748 once it became popular belief that they contributed to the communication of leprosy and other disease; a law that remained in effect until 1772 thanks in large part to Parmentier’s efforts.
When eating potatoes during his prison stint, Parmentier must have been skeptical at best and terrified at worst, given all the misinformation that was widely accepted as fact. Either way, any doubt certainly didn’t last and upon his release he set out as a champion for spuds and in 1773, he won contest sponsored by the Academy of Basancon by proposing the benefits of feeding dysentery patients a diet of potatoes.
Although the Paris Faculty of Medicine officially decreed that potatoes were indeed edible in 1772, that did little to shake preconceived notions of the people. Parmentier was even banned from producing potatoes in his experimental garden at the Invalides Hospital after complaints were received.
Parmentier was so convinced about the potential of the potato that he never stopped his efforts. To the contrary, he stepped them up. At his bread school, he developed a recipe for potato bread that made the staple food item even cheaper to produce. He also published papers supporting his findings and practically begging others to look at the obvious truth of his findings.
Since traditional and educational means didn’t appear to work, Parmentier resorted to some good old fashioned chicanery to get his point across. If you can’t get attention from others, then find a way to manufacture it, and that’s exactly what he did. From his vaunted position as a leading scientist, he hosted lavish dinners for luminaries such as Benjamin Franklin, with his menus prominently featuring potatoes. He presented bouquets of potato blossoms to the king and queen of France and saved his wildest idea for a plot of ground the king had given him that he turned into a garden.
It was in this royally bequeathed garden that he planted potatoes and hired a a force of armed guards to ring his patch during the day to give the illusion they were guarding a valuable commodity.....
....MUCH MORE
Versailles has a short version of the story but with the GDPR note:
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