Europeans were initially skeptical of potatoes, which originated from America. Farmers had to be forced to grow them and taught how to eat them.
Potatoes were not common in Europe in the 18th century. Frederick the Great, the Prussian king, recognized their potential: They were more resistant to bad weather, they provided more calories per acre than other crops, and they were not as easily destroyed by enemy armies as grains. In typical Prussian fashion, he ordered his farmers to plant them. It didn’t work: They stubbornly refused. There’s a German proverb that’s still in use:
Was der Bauer nicht kennt, frisst er nicht.
Meaning, what the farmer doesn’t know, he won’t eat. This must have galled the king, who was otherwise capable and successful. He eventually coerced his farmers into giving potatoes a try but didn’t anticipate that he also had to tell them how to eat them. The farmers didn’t know that the tubers were the edible part and ate the foliage instead. Because potatoes belong to the nightshade family, which has toxic leaves, they got sick, reducing their acceptance even more.
Eventually Old Fritz, as the king was colloquially known, resorted to reverse psychology. He had a patch of potatoes very visibly guarded to make the farmers believe that the crop was highly valuable. Cunningly, he instructed the soldiers to be intentionally lax, so that the farmers had a chance to steal some tubers and plant them in their own fields.
He eventually got his way. Nowadays, Germans eat a lot of potatoes. Maybe they eat too many potatoes. A visitor from Germany recently gave me a cookbook with recipes from her home region of Baden, and almost all of the recipes were potato-based.
Old Fritz’ stuggle for potato acceptance is similar to what another 18th century European king had to contend with: King Gustav III of Sweden thought coffee was dangerous and banned his subjects from drinking it. Like the Germans, his subjects didn’t comply. Today, Swedes drink several cups of coffee whenever they get the chance.
Nehaveigur 
