Antoine Parmentier and the Potato's Reluctant Adoption

In 1748, the French parliament banned the cultivation of potatoes on the grounds that eating them caused leprosy. The evidence for this was nonexistent, but the precedent stuck: for the next thirty years, the potato was a curiosity at best, pig feed at worst, in a country where grain shortages were regular and famine was a lived memory.

Antoine-Augustin Parmentier changed that through one of the more committed marketing campaigns in food history. A pharmacist who had eaten potatoes as a prisoner of war in Prussia, he returned convinced the tuber could solve France's food security problem. He won a prize from the Académie de Besançon in 1772 for his essay arguing the potato's nutritional case. Then he got Louis XVI's permission to plant a field of potatoes on the outskirts of Paris — and he stationed guards around it during the day, publicly, while leaving it unguarded at night. The implication was obvious: whatever the king is protecting must be worth stealing. Peasants dug up the plants and propagated them.

In 1785, Parmentier hosted a dinner at which every course — appetizers, main dishes, desserts, even the bread — was made from potatoes. His guest list included Benjamin Franklin, then serving as U.S. minister to France, and Antoine Lavoisier. Parmentier gave every guest a bouquet of potato flowers to wear; Louis XVI reportedly declared them fashionable at court.

The famine of 1789 did the rest. When people were hungry enough to eat what was available, the potato's caloric density and ease of cultivation made it the obvious choice. Parmentier died in 1813, his name now attached to a French potato gratin still on menus today.