Marie Antoinette wore potato flowers in her hair to try to lend status to and encourage consumption of the "lazy root" to the French populace. It took a long time for potatoes to catch on in Europe, but Antoine-Auguste Parmentier, an army pharmacist who subsisted on potatoes in captivity during the Seven Years War, was their champion. Either he or Louis XVI (sources vary) helped matters by conspicuously guarding a potato patch by day and purposefully leaving it defenceless at night so that those who figured something worth guarding had to be good could sneak in and steal the plants. French fries probably started as pommes Pont-Neuf, quarter-moon fries sold by Parisian street vendors. They crossed the channel to England in roughly 1870. Funny that the country that now lives on fish and chips was slow to appreciate potatoes, unlike Ireland and Belgium, where the nutritious tuber thrived in the climate and fed the people cheaply.

Potatoes!