This plant "used to feed pigs" changed the whole world

The sweet potatoes roll happily in the pot and soon become soft and moist. The chili peppers are more fragrant and spicy through stir-frying. A little bit of salt can tame the dense and bland taste. The simple deliciousness contains a Chengdu person's attachment to sweet potatoes... a delicacy for "feeding pigs"

In Sichuan's vegetable markets, fresh red potato diandianer is always very popular. Red potato is a common name for sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) in Sichuan. Because the stems lie flat or rise and occasionally entwine, Sichuan people often call it red potato vine. Red potato diandianer is the tender stem and leaves at the top of the stem. Because it is rich in a variety of minerals that are beneficial to the human body, it is listed as a high-nutrition vegetable. Not only in China, but also in Western countries such as Europe, America and Japan, eating "red potato diandianer" is also a clear stream leading the healthy fashion.

Our beloved baked sweet potatoes | Silentpilot / Pixabay

One day, a friend of mine told me that his family didn't eat sweet potatoes in the past, but used them to feed pigs. At that moment, I developed a kind of admiration for their pigs. You know, compared with the plummeting pork prices, sweet potatoes are very expensive, a few dollars for a small handful, and if you go too late, they will be sold out. Such precious vegetables were actually eaten by pigs.

The young leaves are also edible | Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên / Wikimedia Commons

On the way home from get off work, the temptation of roasted sweet potatoes wafts in the air. The roasting converts the starch in the sweet potatoes into sugar, and the sweet potatoes are filled with honey and a burnt aroma.

The most important edible part of sweet potato is the underground swollen root. In addition to the simple and crude roasting of sweet potato, there are many ways to eat, process and cook it. In China, sweet potato is the fifth largest food crop after rice, wheat, potato and corn. It is one of the most common and familiar foods for Chinese people. There are many names for it in different places, such as sweet potato, sweet potato, white potato, sweet potato, red potato, golden potato, yam, sweet potato, red potato, etc.

Sweet potato family tree

Sweet potatoes come from the genus Ipomoea in the family Convolvulaceae. During the flowering period, sweet potatoes always have several flowers in the axillary, gathered into an umbrella shape. The lanceolate bracts fall off soon after flowering. The trumpet-like corolla is pink, white, lavender or purple, and is very similar to the morning glory of the family Convolvulaceae. Although sweet potatoes can be seen blooming occasionally, few people have seen them bear fruit. Sweet potatoes are difficult to bear children. This typical cross-pollination crop is not only self-incompatible, but also difficult to bear fruit through self-pollination. There are also several hybrid incompatibility groups between different varieties. In other words, different incompatibility groups "cannot get along" and it is extremely difficult to bear fruit through hybridization. Therefore, asexual reproduction technology is mainly used in sweet potato production.

Although there has been controversy, most scholars believe that sweet potatoes originated in tropical South America. The ancestor of sweet potatoes is a close relative of a wild morning glory. After artificial selection and cultivation, it became the sweet potato with fat tubers and delicious taste today. The trifida morning glory (Ipomoea trifida) distributed in America is the closest known wild Ipomoea plant to sweet potatoes, but the tubers of this plant are thin and cannot be eaten.

It is difficult to know in detail how the ancient Indians discovered and domesticated the high-yield crop of sweet potatoes, but the Central American Indians have been cultivating and domesticating sweet potatoes as a food source for more than 5,000 years, which is one of the oldest crops known to mankind. Before the advent of the Age of Exploration, for a long time, people in most parts of the world did not have the opportunity to taste roasted sweet potatoes.

Sweet potatoes come to the New World

On November 7, 1504, Christopher Columbus, a Genoese explorer funded by the King of Spain, returned from another voyage. This was his fourth voyage to the New World. After returning, Columbus presented sweet potatoes grown by local Indians to Queen Isabella I of Spain.

Botanical illustration from the 19th century | Wikimedia Commons

When Columbus "discovered the New World" and "discovered new crops" at the end of the 15th century, sweet potatoes were widely cultivated as food by local Indians in South America, Central America and the Caribbean Islands. Because of its good taste, the Spanish quickly accepted and loved this high-yield crop from the New World. Various sweet potato delicacies quickly became popular in Spain and quickly spread to European countries. The Taino Indians living in the Caribbean Islands called sweet potatoes "batata", which became patata in Spanish and potato in English. In other words, the potato in English today actually referred to sweet potatoes at first. Because it would cause confusion, sweet potato was later used to refer to sweet potatoes, and potato became the name of potatoes.

Sweet potatoes can also be transformed into "high-end" food | Pixabay

With the advent of the Age of Exploration, sweet potatoes were quickly promoted from Spain to the world, and spread to the Spanish colony of the Philippines via Spanish merchant ships. Around the middle of the Ming Dynasty, sweet potatoes spread to China via the Philippines, and sweet potatoes from the exotic Southeast Asia were also called sweet potatoes. In the Qing Dynasty, sweet potatoes began to be cultivated in large quantities in China and became one of the important food crops for the Chinese. Some people with poor economic conditions had to use it to fill their stomachs, and sweet potatoes were often associated with poverty. However, with this high-yield and highly adaptable super crop, it means that the land can support more people.

The Colonists' Golden Dream

In just 200 years since Columbus brought sweet potatoes from the New World, sweet potatoes have quickly become a global food crop and are widely cultivated in tropical and subtropical regions around the world. However, Columbus, who presented sweet potatoes to the Spanish royal family, did not wait for his return. The King of Spain, who funded Columbus's voyage, once generously promised him that he could become the governor of all the lands discovered by Columbus's fleet and declared as Spanish territory, share 10% of the land income, and have a very resounding title - World Ocean Admiral.

This was Columbus's last voyage, and it was also the first time that Queen Isabella I of Spain, who funded Columbus's numerous voyages, encountered sweet potatoes. Two years later, Columbus, who lost the support of the royal family, died in depression. Throughout his life, Columbus always believed that the new world he discovered where sweet potatoes grew was India in the Ganges River Basin of the Asian continent.

Sweet potato dessert | Polar Fox - 雑司が谷/ Wikimedia Commons

Compared with this little reward, the Queen of Spain was not satisfied with Columbus's performance of offering sweet potatoes because of her greedy desire for the New World.

Many years ago, this ambitious Genoese wrote in his diary: "I want to promise these stubborn kings that if they give me a little funding, I will bring back countless gold, spices, cotton, and the large number of slaves they are chasing after day and night..."