A short story about how potatoes took root among the people. For a long time, people did not understand how to cook it, they ate it raw or waited for a huge tree to grow from a tuber ...
potato read
A good man should someday be honored, - said the grandmother. - Yes, take at least potatoes; she would tell a lot if she could speak! Indeed, for many years potatoes were not put into anything. Even pastors in church sermons said that, they say, it was given to us for joy and benefit, but all in vain: the people did not believe it. The kings themselves distributed potato tubers to people - let them plant them in the ground. And who planted them?
Why, at least in Prussia, there was a great king there, nicknamed Old Fritz; he was a good fellow, and he also took up the potatoes.
He granted a whole cartload of potatoes to one of the cities in his kingdom and ordered the drums to be beaten to call all the townspeople to the square. Not just anyone, but the city fathers showed the people outlandish tubers and loudly taught how to plant potatoes, how to follow them and how to cook them.
What's the point: it went in one ear, went out the other. People did not understand what they were being told, and began to taste raw potatoes. - Ugh, how disgusting! they said, and threw the potatoes into the gutter, and saw with their own eyes that even the dogs disdained them. There were also those who tried to plant potatoes: some buried the potatoes far from each other and began to wait for trees to grow from them, and it would be possible to harvest the fruits.
Others threw them into one large hole, where the tubers stuck together in a lump and gave rise to tops. The following year, the king had to start all over again, and not a little water had flowed before the people realized what they had to do.
- And so it was everywhere! Potatoes, this best of the fruits bestowed on us, people, were not valued anywhere, - said the grandmother. - But now he has no price! Somehow he was recognized. All good things must someday be honored! It often happened to me to see how hard it is for people in the world; and every time I remembered potatoes and grandmother's words.
