In 1748 in a stroke of genius, the French Parliament solved an important problem by banning a loathsome and gnarled vegetable that while perhaps suitable for hogs, was known to cause leprosy when consumed by humans. The French people probably didn’t mind so much, because no one in their right mind would willingly eat a disgusting, likely poisonous, potato from the ground anyway.

Fortunately the Prussians weren’t quite as persnickety. They cultivated the starchy root vegetable and didn’t hesitate to feed it to humans. And as it was cheap and easy to grow, they certainly fed it to prisoners during the Seven Years’ War.

One such prisoner of war was French pharmacist Antoine-Augustin Parmentier who discovered, much to his delight, that he neither died nor developed leprosy on his potato diet and that in fact, with a little butter, sour cream, or cheese, the pig food he’d been given might not be half bad.

When he returned to France, Parmentier set about repairing the damaged reputation of the veggie by going to scientific institutions and soliciting statements touting the safety of potatoes as a food source. Then when the poor harvest season of 1770 threatened famine, as was not an uncommon occurrence in European history up to this point, Prementier’s “Inquiry into Nourishing Vegetables that in Times of Necessity Could Substitute for Ordinary Food,” won him a prize and some important attention.

Soon King Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette jumped on board the potato wagon, adorning their royal clothes with the potato’s purple flower. They also set aside a plot of land on which Parmentier could plant his favorite spuds, which he placed under guard during the day to bestow upon the tubers the appearance of great value.

Under the cloak of darkness, when the guards were strangely scarce, hungry and bold Parisians managed to sneak a few of the highly valued vegetable that nicely bulked up a stew, filled up empty bellies, and didn’t cause any of them leprosy.

I think that’s my favorite part of the story of this transformation from starchy enemy to super veggie. The humble little potato that only pigs would eat became a highly desirable rock star of a vegetable that helped stave off the cycles of famine and became so ubiquitous that instead of substituting for ordinary food as a necessity, it eventually became kind of plain potatoes.

My garden was supposed to yield up a lot of plain potatoes this year, but alas, in our attempt to garden as organically as possible, we left them unguarded just enough that an army of ants managed to feast on them before we could.

What we ended up with was a whole bunch of wrinkled, disgusting, half-decayed vegetables that surely would have given us leprosy.

Okay, probably not, but I’m not a huge potato eater anyway. I only really like them prepared a few specific ways—generally either fried crispy or baked into a casserole with a lot of butter and cheese (turns out I’m a bigger fan of fat than vegetables).

But now that I don’t have my garden potatoes to eat, I can truly appreciate the genius of Antoine-Augustin Parmentier. After the ants got to my humble dirt vegetables, I was wishing I’d kept the garden under guard because all the other ordinary food I had to choose from just didn’t seem as appealing.

Guess I’ll get em next year.