The potato out of the Andes

An Andean domesticate that reached Europe in Spanish ships in the second half of the sixteenth century, by way of Spain and the Canaries. The earliest description available here is printed in Seville in 1553 and does more than name the plant: it describes the freeze-dried chuño of the altiplano, why a rainfed people depended on it, and the Spaniards who grew rich carrying it to the silver mines of Potosí.