Teenagers digging potatoes, 1916. West Point, Kentucky.
That's a lot of potatoes.Role of Potatoes in Diets a Hundred Years Ago
Why would this be true? Well, there's a lot of reasons, but easy to grow and easy to keep are no doubt the top two. Easy to keep is probably the number one reason.
That may seem surprising, but let's keep in mind that this is the day before modern refrigeration. People depended upon ice boxes, which were small by necessity and which you couldn't exactly keep Birdeye frozen entrees in. No, you could not.
But potatoes? You can, if you know how, keep them for months at a time. Heck, I've had instances in which I had potatoes I grew last almost from fall harvesting until the next spring. A practical consideration in an earlier era, even if you weren't keeping that many on hand.
Of course, that would mean that your fare did not vary much. But that too was a condition of earlier living. Everyone, to some extent, was a "locavore"
1 comment:
How true - people were much more dependent upon local foods in days gone by. This post reminds me of how we used to remove the sprouts from potatoes we had stored over the winter to help keep them in good eating condition.
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