At Home: A Short History of Private Life

by Bill Bryson

In Scotland, farm laborers in the early 1800s received an average ration of 17.5 pounds of oatmeal a week, plus a little milk, and almost nothing else, though they generally considered themselves lucky because at least they didn’t have to eat potatoes. These were widely disdained for the first 150 years or so after their introduction to Europe. Many people considered the potato an unwholesome vegetable because its edible parts grew belowground rather than reaching nobly for the sun. Clergymen sometimes preached against the potato on the grounds that it nowhere appears in the Bible. Only the Irish couldn’t afford to be so particular. For them, the potato was a godsend because of its very high yields. A single acre of stony soil could support a family of six if they were prepared to eat a lot of potatoes, and the Irish, of necessity, were. By 1780, 90 percent of people in Ireland were dependent for their survival exclusively or almost exclusively on potatoes.