Potatoes stuffed with bacon and Gruyère AOP

The wonderful potato, this strange vegetable, sometimes awkward looking but which brings us so many benefits. Did you know that in the 16th century, along with maize, the potato was the basic food for the Incan empire? With the discovery of the potato in South America by the Spanish explorers, it took three more centuries to impose them on Europe and the rest of the world. In fact, on the mainland at the time, people didn’t want to eat them and reserved them for the hogs even though their own plates were too often empty.

Although easy to grow, the potato has become one of the most sought after foods in the entire world. It is as likely to be found at the tables of the poor as in the creation of a gourmet meal.

In 1589, in the botanic garden of Basel, in Switzerland, the first plants were cultivated by Gaspar Bauhin. In one century, its easy adaptation to the alpine climate made the potato extremely popular here, to the point where in certain areas, it even sometimes completely replaced wheat.

In France, it was in the 18th century that Antoine-Augustin Parmentier, a chemist in the army, managed to seduce the French palaces. Thanks to the potato’s nutritive values, it was recommended to solve the famine problems which ravaged France at the time.

Coming from the bowls of the poor centuries ago, today the potato is the source of so many culinary inspirations for the grand chefs that we find it in the world’s finest restaurants. What a journey and what a beautiful setting for today’s Gruyère AOP.