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The kitchen screen door creaked and then slapped closed. Jeff’s room was right over the kitchen in the spacious farmhouse and the sound woke him with a start. He looked around the sun-filled room. It was the first day of his summer vacation and he would be spending it with his grandparents here on their Idaho farm.

He remembered the tire swing from last summer and picking ripe, juicy berries right off the vine with his grandmother. Nothing tasted better than those sweet berries, still warm from the sun.

On a farm however, there’s always work to be done and the sound of that screen door was simply a precursor to his grandfather’s warm and familiar voice shouting a hearty “Good Morning Jeff, m’boy!” from the bottom of the stairs.

Jeff responded with a “Hey Grandpa,” pulled on his overalls and quickly headed for the kitchen where Grandma had some fresh berries in cream and a bowl of cinnamon-laced oatmeal ready for him. He gave her a hug, ate quickly, and shot out the door to find grandpa, the noisy screen door repeating its earlier performance behind him.

Jeff found him out in the fields, checking the potato plants to make sure they were maturing nicely. It was hard to tell how the actual potatoes were doing because they grow underground. They’re part of a potato plant’s root system and are called tubers. Jeff had learned that much last summer and was somewhat surprised when his grandfather had told him that both potatoes and tomatoes were members of the exact same plant family known as the nightshades. Most nightshade plants are poisonous, but these two are safe and nutritious.

Jeff was excited to tell his grandfather what he had learned about potatoes since his last visit. As they walked the fields Jeff explained that potatoes originally came from the Andes Mountains of Peru in South America. There in the cold heights where wheat and corn couldn’t grow, the Incas cultivated the hardy ancestor of today’s potato.

The Peruvian farmers even had a way to freeze-dry them. They would dig up the tubers and leave them on top of the ground to freeze during the cold night. Come morning, they would trample the potatoes to remove all the moisture. The potatoes would be subjected to the same process for four more days until all of the moisture was crushed out. The result of all this work was a light, potato flour used to bake bread.

Jeff told his grandpa how there weren’t any potatoes in Europe until the Spanish Conquistadors brought some back with them from Peru in the 1500s. From there, Sir Walter Raleigh introduced potatoes to Ireland. But it wasn’t until the 1700s that potatoes became a serious crop in the American colonies.

Grandpa congratulated Jeff on his knowledge and was secretly pleased that Jeff had such a keen interest. He asked Jeff if he had heard about the potato famine. When Jeff shook his head, Grandpa explained how the potato had become the basic food source for the Irish people.

So in the mid-1800s, when a fungus destroyed all the potato crops, it was a terrible calamity. Many people died from starvation and those who were able, left Ireland to find a home where they could once again feed themselves. Many made their way to the U.S. and after much hardship were able to make a life here.

Grandpa continued on a lighter note, “I’ll bet you didn’t know that potatoes were once worth their weight in gold!” Chuckling at Jeff’s amazement, he described how during the Klondike Gold Rush in Alaska it was extremely difficult to get fresh vegetables. “Because potatoes stay fresh longer than many other vegetables and could therefore be easily transported to the far away Alaskan territory, potatoes became one of the few sources of vitamin C available to the miners. They eagerly bought the rare potatoes and actually paid for them with their newly mined gold!”

Both grandfather and grandson had enjoyed discussing their common interest and sharing their knowledge with each other. Walking the fields and conversing had given them a good appetite. As they headed back to the farmhouse for lunch their attention shifted from potatoes to the blackberry pie Grandma had promised to bake. Now, there was something worth its weight in gold!