Come to think of it, most Indian meals — those who follow Jainism strictly are an exception, for they stay away from anything that grows underground — are incomplete without it. Many meals outside India, too, would be incomplete without it. What did the British do with their fried fish before they knew the potato? How many centuries did the fried fish spend alone without chips?

That is an important question — for the potato also allows us a glimpse into history. It’s only with the British that the potato spread to the rest of the world from South America. The history of the potato co-exists with the history of imperialism.

Worshipped in parts of South America as early as 500 BC, the potato was introduced to the world by the Peruvians, who refer to it as “Papa”. The Spanish conquistador Pedro Cieza de Leon in his journal Chronicle of Peru writes for the first time about the vegetable in 1553.

The Spanish conquistadors, in the 16th century, didn’t find any gold and silver in Peru, but discovered something no less valuable — potatoes —- and quickly cornered the Peru market. Potatoes were soon a standard supply item on Spanish ships. They became even more popular with the observation that the sailors who ate them did not suffer from scurvy.

Around the same time, Sir Francis Drake supposedly brought back potatoes to England from a trip to the West Indies. He is believed to have handed them over to Sir Walter Raleigh who took the tuber all over Europe. Potatoes furthered both an agrarian revolution in the early 17th century and a population increase in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. France’s Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were said to be exceptionally fond of potatoes. Today, it’s the world’s fourth most cultivated crop. And the UN is pushing it.

So imagine a world without the potato. Granted that it would make many several kgs lighter, but life would also be so much duller. And tasteless.

There would be no French fries, hot, crisp and oh-so-tasty, with fried fish, steaks, other vegetables, or just. There would be no McDonalds.

Going to movies wouldn’t be the same. Messy nachos are no substitute for chips and how much popcorn can one have? Lays and Uncle Chipps would be out of business. “I eat at least one packet of potato chips every day, which increases in number when I go to watch a movie. I can’t comprehend a world without potato chips,” smiles college student Reetesh Banerjee.

The “potato” in “couch potato” would have to be replaced with another vegetable. Couch pumpkin? Couch apple? Couch pear? Naaah. They just don’t have that zing.

Bengalis would be in a fix, for what would luchi be without aloor dom? “Luchi and aloor dom has been a Sunday breakfast staple in my family for years. Though I do like having luchi with kosha mangsho or beguni once in a while, nothing tastes as good as aloor dom,” says advertising professional Swagata Mukherjee. No aloo sheddho bhaat — the great Bong comfort food — either. Same for crisp aloo bhaja and the eternal favourite aloo posto.

It is the aloo that makes a chaat mouthwatering. And jhalmuri wouldn’t be the same without those tiny bits of boiled potato in it. There would be no aloo kabli. The bhaji will go missing from pav bhaji.

No aloo spells doom for the average Punjabi. For he would be denied hot, steaming parathas stuffed with aloo and topped off with generous dollops of butter.

The phuchka — the pride of Calcutta — wouldn’t have so many takers if the filling was made up of anything other than aloo. “Along with the tamarind water, it is actually the quality of the potato filling which distinguishes a great phuchka from a mediocre one,” says medical practitioner Shantanu Sen. And what would happen to vada pav — the lifeline of Mumbaikars — sans the potato filling?

If the potato decides to do the disappearing act, Western civilisations would crash. There would be no mashed potatoes, no hash brown, and no potato salad. Jacket potatoes or baked potatoes would also be wiped off the menu.

Available through the year, it’s also one of the easiest to make. “A working woman, I hardly get the time to cook. Whenever I do, I always make something with potatoes. Not only is it easy and less time consuming to come up with a potato dish, you will rarely find someone who doesn’t like potatoes,” says 30-year-old software engineer Shruti Sharma.

The potato head toy — a part of childhood memories for many — would no longer exist. And what would happen to the Louis Armstrong runaway hit Potato Head Blues?

No potatoes would mean no quick, sure-shot treatment for hangover-induced dark circles the morning after.

There would be no fine-dining restaurant in town called The Blue Potato.

Pakistani ex-star Inzamam-Ul-Haq would lose his nickname “Aloo”!

More potatoes = no rice

While we are all with the UN in fostering the development of the potato, it comes at the cost of another indispensable food item — rice. The world body, in its endeavour to promote the cultivation and consumption of the tuber (which they refer to as the “hidden treasure”), has been emphasising that the potato can take the place of rice in a person’s everyday diet — even those who live on rice four times a day! That would spell doom for a sizeable chunk of the Asian population whose staple diet is rice. Not to mention the fact that rice and potato are not perfect substitutes of each other, although their nutrition levels are more or less on a par.

“Both rice and potato are starchy foods, rich in carbohydrates and would somewhat fulfil the same functions when consumed in moderate quantities. But rice is definitely richer in protein,” says t2 columnist and nutrionist Doel Bishnu Roy.

But no matter how versatile a vegetable the potato deems itself to be, its ability to take over rice remains suspect. Machher jhol can only be accompanied by bhaat and there can be no substitute for rice in biryani, pulao and fried rice. For obvious reasons. And though idli and dosa are also available in their rawa avatars, they don’t really taste the same as their rice counterparts. No rice also means no jhalmuri since muri is puffed rice. “I am an avid rice and potato eater. Not having either of the two is unthinkable,” is how 20-year-old college student Koeli Basu sums it up.

And Condoleeza Potato just doesn’t make the cut.

(Which is your favourite form of potato food? Tell t2@abpmail.com)