People Always Want What They Can't Have

So today I was reading about the history of potatoes (what? You know you do too) and how they were originally considered a "dirty" food that only peasants would eat (maybe that's why I love them).

Then, in the mid 1700's, a French pharmacist named Antoine Parmentier was thrown in a German prison and fed only what? The dirt food of the poor. The problem is he came out of prison healthier than when he went in.

So he tried to convince the French King Louis XVI to get potatoes. But the king didn't want peasant food from Germany for his loyal subjects, but he made a concession. He gave Parmentier the cruddiest piece of land on the castle grounds that nothing grew on and said he could grow them there and see if potatoes would catch on.

But Parmentier was smart. First, it's potatoes, they grow anywhere. So they grew in the bad land. But he also put castle guards around the crop to protect his valuable food. He then told the guards to accept bribes secretly and let people steal the food if they tried. What happens when you tell people they can't have something? Within only a few decades so many people had stolen potatoes and planted them at home that potato farms were as numerous as wineries in France.

So basically, it's still true. People only want what they can't have...

T