The Potato King

They were dying of hunger

In 18th Century Prussia, bread was expensive, people were malnourished and famine wasn’t uncommon.

The King at the time was Frederick the Great. He was wise enough to realise that unfed subjects were not a good thing — it is hard to run a kingdom effectively if people keep dying of starvation — so he set about finding a solution.

The wonder food

After a while he came on it, the new discovery from South America, the potato.

• Potatoes are easy to grow
• Potatoes are a reliable crop (there have been exceptions)
• Potatoes contain lots of calories

If his subjects planted potatoes then they would survive and Frederick the Great would be able to collect more taxes and stamp his mark on European history.

This is what is commonly known as a win–win.

There was, however, a small difficulty; the peasants didn’t like potatoes. Potatoes were a novelty and widely regarded as being good for little more than cattle feed.

How do you popularise the potato?

Frederick tried education; he gave out free potatoes and preached about their nutritional qualities, but nobody paid him much notice.

Frederick tried force; in 1774 he ordered his subjects to grow potatoes to protect them from famine.  The town of Kolberg replied:

“The things have neither smell nor taste, not even the dogs will eat them so what use are they to us?”

Frederick tried cunning; he grew potatoes himself, but not any old potatoes, royal potatoes. They were only for consumption in the royal court and no peasant was allowed to eat them.

The royal potato fields were planted across the country and guarded day and night to make sure the peasants didn’t steal them before they could be harvested.

Peasants aren’t fools

The peasants may have been hungry, but they certainly weren’t stupid. If potatoes were good enough for the King then they were certainly good enough for them. So in the middle of the night, when the guards were sleeping, the peasants crept into the fields and stole the potatoes.

Stealing potatoes was a whole lot easier than poaching game — potatoes don’t move nearly so quickly — and the peasants became quite proficient at it. Before long they were growing their own.

To this day, Prussian cuisine (think Poland and Germany) is noted for its use of the humble potato.

A story with a moral

I can’t vouch for the truthfulness of this story, it is just a legend, but if you visit Frederick the Great’s grave in Potsdam you will find that the locals have covered it with potatoes.

If you really want to change people’s behaviour you must lead by example.