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Baked or fried, boiled or roasted, as chips or fries.
烘培或油炸，水煮或烘烤，薯片或薯条。
At some point in your life, you've probably eaten a potato.
在你的生命里，你应该吃过土豆。
Delicious, for sure, but the fact is potatoes have played a much more significant role in our history
肯定很美味，但事实上，土豆在我们的历史里扮演了更重要的角色，
than just that of the dietary staple we have come to know and love today.
不只是如今我们所知与喜爱的主食而已。
Without the potato, our modern civilization might not exist at all.
没有土豆的话，现代文明可能不会存在。
8,000 years ago in South America, high atop the Andes, ancient Peruvians were the first to cultivate the potato.
八千年前，在南美安第斯山的顶端，古代秘鲁人成为了最早种植土豆的人。
Containing high levels of proteins and carbohydrates, as well as essential fats, vitamins and minerals,
它含有高蛋白质和碳水化合物以及必需脂肪酸、维生素和矿物质，
potatoes were the perfect food source to fuel a large Incan working class as they built and farmed their terraced fields,
土豆是完美的食源，为印加劳工提供了大量能量，让他们建立与种植梯田，
mined the Rocky Mountains, and created the sophisticated civilization of the great Incan Empire.
挖掘落基山脉矿产，以及建立起伟大的印加帝国文明。
But considering how vital they were to the Incan people,
虽然土豆对印加人民非常重要，
when Spanish sailors returning from the Andes first brought potatoes to Europe, the spuds were duds.
当西班牙水手从安第斯山返国时，首次将土豆引进欧洲，它们却变得毫无价值。
Europeans simply didn't want to eat what they considered dull and tasteless oddities from a strange new land,
欧洲人根本不想食用它，他们把它当成来自陌生异地、食之无味的怪产物，
too closely related to the deadly nightshade plant belladonna for comfort.
跟致命的茄属植物--颠茄太接近。
So instead of consuming them, they used potatoes as decorative garden plants.
与其吃掉它们，欧洲人宁可将土豆用作观赏植物。
More than 200 years would pass before the potato caught on as a major food source throughout Europe,
土豆经历了超过两百年才成为欧洲的主食，
though even then, it was predominantly eaten by the lower classes.
即使在那个时候土豆充其量只是下层阶级的食物。
However, beginning around 1750, and thanks at least in part to the wide availability of inexpensive and nutritious potatoes,
无论如何，大约从1750年起，在一定的程度上要归功于廉价而又有营养的土豆的普遍性，
European peasants with greater food security no longer found themselves at the mercy of the regularly occurring grain famines of the time,
欧洲农民有了这个食物保障，发觉到他们不必再受制于经常发生的谷物饥荒了，
and so their populations steadily grew.
因此他们的人口也发展得很稳定。
As a result, the British, Dutch and German Empires rose on the backs of the growing groups of farmers, laborers, and soldiers,
这样一来，英国、荷兰与德意志帝国在农民、劳工和军人的成长下崛起，
thus lifting the West to its place of world dominion.
提升了西方在世界统治下的地位。
However, not all European countries sprouted empires.
然而，并非所有欧洲国家都发展成为帝国。
After the Irish adopted the potato, their population dramatically increased,
爱尔兰在培育了土豆之后人口急剧上升，
as did their dependence on the tuber as a major food staple. But then disaster struck.
他们过于依赖这个主食，之后却爆发了灾难。
From 1845 to 1852, potato blight disease ravaged the majority of Ireland's potato crop,
从1845至1852年，土豆晚疫病肆虐了大部分爱尔兰的土豆作物，
leading to the Irish Potato Famine, one of the deadliest famines in world history.
导致爱尔兰发生土豆饥荒，成为世界历史上致命的饥荒之一。
Over a million Irish citizens starved to death, and 2 million more left their homes behind.
超过一百万爱尔兰人民饥饿致死，两百多万人逃离家园。
But of course, this wasn't the end for the potato.
当然，土豆并不因此消声灭迹。
The crop eventually recovered, and Europe's population, especially the working classes, continued to increase.
作物最后恢复正常，而欧洲人口，尤其是劳工阶级，持续增加。
Aided by the influx of Irish migrants, Europe now had a large, sustainable, and well-fed population
得力于爱尔兰移民的涌入，欧洲如今已拥有庞大的、持续增长且丰衣足食的人口，
who were capable of manning the emerging factories that would bring about our modern world via the Industrial Revolution.
足够应付新兴工业所需的劳动力，工业革命创造了现代化世界。
So it's almost impossible to imagine a world without the potato.
所以几乎无法想象一个没有土豆的世界。
Would the Industrial Revolution ever have happened?
工业革命是否还会发生？
Would World War II have been lost by the Allies without this easy-to-grow crop that fed the Allied troops?
第二次世界大战的联军部队没了这种易栽培的作物充饥，会不会因此战败？
Would it even have started? When you think about it like this,
或者第二次世界大战根本不会发生？当你有这种想法时，
many major milestones in world history can all be at least partially attributed to the simple spud from the Peruvian hilltops.
世界历史上的许多重大里程碑多少归功于这秘鲁山顶上平凡的土豆吧。
