Potato, the bread of the ancient Andeans: a cultural voyage across the civilizations

摘要

Potato, a living fossil of the ancient Andean humanity, is a 'cultural phenotype' of the great Andean civilization. This crop of Pachamama (mother earth), being responsible for setting the course of history and destiny of the inhabitants of the Andes,and shaping their cosmic vision, has been developed through the millennia of Andean ingenuity and conditioned by the vices and virtues of the modern world. The evolution of the potato from an insignificant tuber to a highly nutritious quality food is the evolution of the Andean cultures through continuous conflict and adaptation, and actions and reactions. Thus the history of the potato is the history of the Andean culture. The Immunization of the potato, which the ancient Andeans started through theircollective imagination, has resulted in its transformation into a 'humane food', historically serving the poor and the oppressed, be it among the poor Andeans portrayed in their mythical tales and legends or among the poor miners, peat cutters, weaversand farmers in Nuenen sketched in Vincent Van Gogh's famous painting, The Potato Eaters'. There lies the essence of this crop in bridging the cultures across the civilizations, because it has always stood up for the hungry and poor people as their sustenance, and fought against the poverty. This seed of the Andean society is feeding the modern world with Andean hospitality, nourishing our children with Andean tenderness, building our relationship and binding it with Andean sensitivity, and transcendingour cultural barriers with Andean wisdom and humaneness. The potato or the papa, the kawsay in Quechua, continues its voyage, impervious to time bearing the cultural testimony of the Andeans, Hispanics, Europeans and many of us, with the tunes of quena flutes and rhythms of the drums of the lost Incas attended by their spirits.