DID AKBAR, the great Moghul (1556-1605), relish dam aalu? Probably not, especially as one doesn't have firm evidence he did. The record kept by his minister, Abul Fazl, of crops grown in India in Akbar's time doesn't mention the potato (called aalu, in Hindi).

India produces about 16 million tonnes of potatoes annually, on nearly 1 million ha of land. Potatoes are eaten the length and breadth of the country and in many forms ranging from curry to stuffed paranthas. The potato was introduced in India in Gujarat by the Portuguese at the turn of the 16th century. The first mention of potato in India occurs in an account by the British traveller, Edward Terry, of a banquet given in Ajmer in 1615 to Sir Thomas Roe, Queen Elizabeth I's ambassador to Emperor Jehangir. But not much else is known about the role of the potato in India.

Its popularity as an agricultural crop owes a lot to the Calcutta-based Royal Agri-Horticultural Society, founded in 1820 by the British missionary-scholar, William Carey (1764-1834). In 1832, Captain Tichmond grew potatoes from a variety imported from England and distributed by the society. Later, the famous Nainital and Shillong varieties were developed out of English strains also introduced by the society.

In south India, potatoes are a major commercial crop, cultivated on about 10,000 ha in the Nilgiri hills annually, even though the potato was unknown in the region before 1830. First introduced by a British official named Sulavan, potato research was subsequently carried out by the Government Botanic Gardens in Udhagamandalam, Tamil Nadu.