First published in Nottingham Organic Gardeners Newsletter Spring 2012.
A week or so after our Potato Day, I was putting my tubers into egg-boxes to chit. Colleen, Lady Christl, Red Duke of York, Charlotte, Desiree, Lady Balfour, Linda, Sarpo Mira, Anya, and Robinta. Wait a minute, isn’t there a hint of a theme there? Why are my potatoes nearly all named after women? Maybe it was me, unconsciously choosing potatoes named after members of my gender rather than picking them for their pest resistance, productivity or whatever. Linda sounds like a good potato, but I do also have two good friends called Linda!
So I looked back at the list from potato day and did some
very basic statistics. It’s called counting. There were 13 which have women’s
names, including the two Ladies named above, and British Queen. Bonnie Dundee
and Belle de Fontenay are probably girls too. There were a few which were
possible, such as Aura and Harmony, but both are descriptive words in their own
right so I didn’t count them. Mira and Robinta sound as if they should be
women’s names but I’m not sure, so I didn’t count them either.
Some of my 2012 potatoes, later in the year.
So how about male potato names? There were five. Duke of
York (Red or not), King Edward, Picasso, Romano, and Ulster Prince. Even
without the Bonnies, Belles and Miras, there’s no comparison. The difference is
the ones simply given a female name, rather than named after a famous woman.
There were more famous men than women – but that’s another issue! So what was
going on? I decided to find out, and in the best tradition of contemporary
journalism (if that’s not an oxymoron) I spent an evening googling.
An investigation of the potato names on the British Potato
Variety Database didn’t reveal much, just that potatoes like Orla, Cara and
Colleen are Irish, no big surprise, and Nadine, Harmony and Anya are Scottish. So
they weren’t all from one seed company, nor were they all of one age. Then,
looking at European varieties, I discovered that it wasn’t just British
breeders, but French and Dutch and many others tended to give their potatoes
women’s names, Annabelle, Fianna and Mona Lisa being just a few.
So was it something to do with the history of the potato in
the west, and when it became accepted as a vegetable? It took many years from
the potato being brought from South America to it being the staple of so many
countries. It is a fascinating story which even includes Marie Antoinette
wearing potato flowers in her hair. However for many years potatoes were
regarded with great suspicion, and were called names like ‘Devil’s apple’,
‘Forbidden fruit of Eden’, and ‘Eve’s apple’. Women being implicated again, but
it doesn’t seem to connect with current names.
I came across a report that an international team recently
tried to sort out the tangle of 600 scientific names for potato – which
corresponded to just 4 cultivated species. There were also about 100 wild
species, with about 500 scientific names. As you can imagine, this will help in
communicating about potato breeding as scientists search for new genetic inputs
for addressing issues of climate change and pests and diseases. But no clues
about the cultivar names.
Then I discovered the article ‘Why the Quechua Women Grew
Four Thousand Species of Potatoes’ – and was off on another fascinating
side-track. The Quechua are a pre-Hispanic culture in the Andes, and the tradition
of propagating potatoes by seed is continued by the women in gardens (while
often the men farm commercial potato varieties in fields). The women’s potatoes
have an incredible variety of shape and colour after thousands of years of
selection, and have names which reflect their traditions, environment, and relationships:
‘like an old bone’, ‘like a deer’s white tongue,’ and ‘makes the
daughter-in-law cry’. Wonderful stuff, but I couldn’t see that this,
coincidental as it was, would have any influence on names many years later. And
why did the daughter-in-law cry?
Then some more delights, via Google books: back in the old
days in Peru in the Amará language they used a different system: red potatoes
are usually considered female, whilst white ones are associated with maleness.
So ‘Saq’ampaya’ means ‘Long Male Potato’.
No sniggering. But also the answer to my new question: in Quechuan
‘Cachan huacachi’ means, yes, ‘Potato which makes the daughter-in-law cry’ –
because it has very deep eyes which makes it difficult to peel. Poor
daughter-in-law, I’m sure she was doing her best, but the old harpy just kept
giving her horrid potatoes.
Fascinating stuff, but I still don’t really know why so many
potatoes have women’s names. I guess the real answer is quite prosaic: potatoes
are named after women because most are bred by men. And women’s names sound
nice. Would we want to buy a Fred, Derek or Wayne potato? (sorry Fred, Derek
and Wayne!)
References:
‘The Complete book of Potatoes’, De Jong, Sieczka and De
Jong. (Available via www.google.co.uk/books/
)
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