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Hi I’m a fantasy writer and now I need to know what potatoes do to a society
They drastically increase peasant food security and social autonomy.
The main staple of medieval agriculture was grain–wheat, barley, oats, or rye. All that grain has to be harvested in a relatively short window, about a week or two. It has to be cut down (scythed), and stored in the field in a safe and effective way (stooked); then it has to be brought to a barn and vigorously beaten (threshed) to separate the grain from the stalks and the seed husks. It can be stored for a few weeks or months in this form before it spoils or loses nutritional value.
Then it has to be ground into flour. In the earlier middle ages, peasants could grind their own flour by hand using small querns, but landlords had realized that if they wanted to get more money out of their peasants, it was more effective for the entire village to have one large mill that everyone used. Peasants had to pay a fee to have their flour ground–and it might say something that there are practically no depictions of millers in medieval English literature in which the miller is not a corrupt thief.
Then the flour has to be processed to make most of its nutrients edible to humans, which ideally involves yeast–either it’s made into bread which takes hours to make every time (and often involves paying to use the village’s communal bread oven) and spoils within a few days, or it’s made into weak ale, which takes several weeks to make, but can keep for several months.
Potatoes, in comparison…
Potatoes have considerably more nutrients and calories than any similar crop available in medieval Europe–they beat turnips, carrots, parsnips, beets, or anything else all to heck. I don’t know if they beat wheat out for calories per acre, but practically…
When you dig a potato out of the ground (which you can do at any time within a span of several months), you can bury it in the ashes of a fire for an hour, or you can boil it in water for 20 minutes.
Then you eat it. Boom. Done. (I mean, if you’re not fussy, you could even eat them raw.)
You store the ones you don’t want right now in a root cellar and plant some of them in the spring to get between a fivefold and tenfold return on your crop.
Potatoes don’t just feed you–they free you. Grain-based agriculture relies on lots of people working together to get the work done in a very short length of time. It relies on common infrastructure that is outside the individual peasant’s control. The grain has to be brought to several different locations to be processed, and it can be seized or taxed at any of those points. It’s very open to exploitation.
TW: Genocide The Irish Potato Famine happened because the English colonizers of Ireland demanded rents and taxes that were paid in grain, and it ended up that you didn’t really get to keep much of the grain you grew. So the Irish farmed wheat in fields to pay the English, and then went home and ate potatoes from their gardens. And then, because they were eating only one specific breed of potatoes, a blight came through and wiped all their potatoes out, and then they starved. So English narratives about the potato famine tended to say “Oh yes, potato blight, very tragic,” and ignore the whole “The English were taking all the grain” aspect, but the subtext here is: Potatoes are much harder to tax or steal than grain.
So… yeah. I realize it’s very counterproductive to explain to everybody why I’m always like “OMG POTATO NO” when I wish I could just chill out and not care about this. But the social implications of the humble potato are rather dramatic.
I’m a little curious tho, how does just seeds from the grain go bad?
Like if they lose their nutritional value so quickly how do they get planted the next year?
Part of how medieval farmers avoided the problem of grain spoilage over the winter was to plant their grain crop in the late autumn, and let it start growing over the winter. Then they’d sow again in early spring. The winter crop might get blighted by the cold, or it might come up early; the spring crop might not sprout as much and would take longer, but it might help you out if your winter crop failed. They were kind of hedging their bets in an imperfect system.
Faster causes of of grain spoilage are visibly “something has ruined this grain”–insects, molds, or vermin get in at the grain, so your grain is much more likely to be eaten, pooped on, or rotten when you take it out of storage.
If you can get grain to survive those quicker methods, eventually grain can spoil simply by being exposed to air. After a few months the oil inside it oxidizes, which destroys a lot of its nutrients. You might get it to sprout six months later, but it’s a lot less nutritious if you eat it, and if you grow it the plants will get less of a head start before they have to rely on their root system to bring in nutrients from the soil.
Very occasionally, archeologists turn up ancient seeds that still sprout, but those seeds are usually exceptionally well preserved–for example, sealed in a jar in a tomb that was undisturbed for thousands of years and magically it never got hot or wet enough to spoil. But you can’t store large amounts of grain like that, partly because the simple existence of large amounts of grain will attract pests that will spoil it. The ones that survive are the one-in-a-million cases.
My absolute favourite under-acknowledged agricultural hazard is self-heating and thermal runaways.
If a plant isn’t actively growing it is, in fact, decomposing - the speed at which it’s doing that depends on things like external temperature, moisture, etc and can be anywhere from very slow to very fast.
Stuff that is decomposing produces heat.
Grain is an amazing insulator, so all of that heat gets trapped in the middle of the bin.
High heat encourages more decomp. Which produces more heat. Which produces more decomp. Which, eventually, can lead to a thermal runaway, in which the grain passes its ignition point and begins to smolder. (And if you’re really unlucky, that can spark a dust explosion.)
This is one of the reasons that grain farmers are Very Concerned about moisture content - high moisture content means faster decomposition, and thus faster spoilage but also the risk of your grain bin blowing up. Modern farmers carefully control the moisture content and air circulation of their stored grain to maximize quality and shelf life, while avoiding inconvenient explosions.
I don’t know that medieval farmers ever would have produced enough grain to be at risk of thermal runaway - but there are hazards to storing large amounts of grain even aside from pests and loss of nutritional value.
Adding to this only that, from the POV of a fantasy writer attempting to deal realistically with much of the above ( and a culture that I’ve decided does not have the potato), it’s really handy that the culture in question has a lot of magic users. :) …And very committed “corn kings”.
Everyone say thank you to the dedicated bioengineers of very ancient Peru for potato. They really looked at a toxic nightshade and were like “what if this was a delicious, nutritious staple food crop”
it wouldn’t surprise me if this person is just claiming to be a lesbian like kellie jay keen, but she’s one hell of a fucking pick me if she is actually a lesbian and this is the kind of shit she’s saying. clearly doesn’t know an ounce of queer history either.
gay bars were set up not for cishet comfort but for our comfort. because cishets were fucking killing us and we could literally be arrested.
“uwu pleaaaase mr cishet, let me lick your boots clean! I promise I’m one of the good gays and won’t make you uncomfortable! I love the taste of dirty leather so much!” get over yourself, you pathetic waste of space 💀
This is the most ahistorical take Ive ever seen regarding the history of queer spaces. @thelittlelionofvalleyforge could probably explain it better than me though.
Yeah it was less we realised we made the poor homophobes uncomfortable so we made our own spaces and more that the homophobes literally wanted to kill us so we made our own spaces to avoid being murdered. And even then they came into our spaces so they could find and kill us.
In the 18th century men who had sex with men were known as mollies. Mollies would meet in molly houses (somewhat similar to a modern gay bar). As sex between men was illegal under anti-sodomy law the locations of molly houses were secret. However sometimes the police would discover the location of a molly house then raid the molly house and arrest anyone they had enough evidence to charge with anything.
For example on a Sunday night in February 1726 Mother Clap’s Molly House was raided. In connection with the raid Gabriel Lawrence, William Griffin and Thomas Wright were all executed for sodomy. Ecclestone died in Newgate awaiting trial. William Brown was found guilty of “Intent to commit Sodomy” and was sentenced “to stand in the Pillory in Moorfields, pay 10 Marks, and suffer a Year’s Imprisonment.” And Margaret Clap was found guilty of “keeping a House in which she procur’d and encourag’d Persons to commit Sodomy” and sentenced “to stand in the Pillory in Smith field, pay a Fine of 20 Marks, and suffer two Years Imprisonment.” (see Trial of Gabriel Lawrence, 20 April, 1726; Trial of William Griffin, 20 April, 1726; Trial of Thomas Wright, 20 April, 1726; Trial of William Brown, 11 July 1726; Trial of Margaret Clap, 11 July, 1726)
For those sentenced to the pillory the public was not kind. On the 30th of July 1726 the Weekly Journal, or British Gazetteer reported:
On Tuesday, Margaret Clap, who had been convicted of keeping a disorderly House, stood in the Pillory in West-Smithfield, where being unable to bear the Salutes of the Rabble, she swooned away twice, and was carried off in Convulsion Fits to Newgate.
Trans and gender diverse people have always been part of these communities. Princess Seraphina was part of the molly community in London during the 1720s and 1730s. She did “sodomiting Errands” carrying messages between mollies and she was bridesmaid at Moll Irons wedding to an another molly. (James Dalton’s Narrative, 1728) Seraphina would sometimes wear men’s clothes and other times women’s clothes and it seems many of her friends used she/her pronouns for her although others used he/him.
Mary Poplet, who kept the Two Sugar-Loaves in Drury-Lane, recalls:
I have known her Highness a pretty while, she us’d to come to my House from Mr. Tull, to enquire after some Gentlemen of no very good Character; I have seen her several times in Women’s Cloaths, she commonly us’d to wear a white Gown, and a scarlet Cloak, with her Hair frizzled and curl’d all round her Forehead; and then she would so flutter her Fan, and make such fine Curties, that you would not have known her from a Woman: She takes great Delight in Balls and Masquerades, and always chuses to appear at them in a Female Dress, that she may have the Satisfaction of dancing with fine Gentlemen. Her Highness lives with Mr. Tull in Eagle-Court in the Strand, and calls him her Master, because she was Nurse to him and his Wife when they were both in a Salivation; but the Princess is rather Mr. Tull’s Friend, than his domestick Servant. I never heard that she had any other Name than the Princess Sraphina.
(Trial of Thomas Gordon, 5 July 1732)
Gay and lesbian activism and trans activism have always been closely linked. Late-19th/early-20th century gay rights activist Magnus Hirschfeld campaigned against Paragraph 175 (which made sex between men a crime in Germany) but also fought for freedom in gender expression. Hirschfeld convinced the Berlin Police to issue a transvestitenschein (transvestite licence) for people who were more comfortable wearing clothes of the gender opposite to their agab. He argued that these licence were essential to their well-being and even survival. Hirschfeld also helped people legally change their name to one that matched their gender identity. (The Administration of Gender Identity in Nazi Germany by Jane Caplan, p174)
[Transvestitenschein (transvestite licence) issued to Käthe T., c. 1928, via The Early 20th-Century ID Cards That Kept Trans People Safe From Harassment by Natasha Frost]
Translation:
The worker Käthe T., born in Berlin in 1910, resident at 8 Muthesiushof, Britz, is locally known to wear men’s clothing.
Magnus Hirschfeld was also the founder of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sexual Science) where Dora Richter was the first trans women to receive vaginoplasty in 1931.
Jane Caplan explains:
The transvestite belonged in Hirschfeld’s schema of intermediate sexualities (Zwischenstufe) which challenged the dichotomous norm of male and female. For these reasons, Hirschfeld was a target of particular Nazi venom and his institute and its principles of sexual enlightenment fell immediate victim to the new regime.
While trans and gender nonconforming people have always been part of the community there has unfortunately been a longstanding issue with transphobia within the community. Transphobic LGB people have always wanted to push trans people out of the community, even trans people who were actively involved in fighting for gay and lesbian rights. During the 1973 Christopher Street Liberation Day Jean O'Leary (founder of Lesbian Feminist Liberation) tried to stop Sylvia Reveria (cofounder of STAR Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries) from speaking. Reveria responded with her iconic Y’all Better Quiet Down speech (I’m going to include a excerpt below but I recommend watching the whole thing):
I will not put up with this shit. I have been beaten. I have had my nose broken. I have been thrown in jail. I have lost my job. I have lost my apartment for gay liberation and you all treat me this way? What the fuck’s wrong with you all? Think about that! I do not believe in a revolution, but you all do. I believe in the Gay Power. I believe in us getting our rights, or else I would not be out there fighting for our rights. That’s all I wanted to say to you people. If you all want to know about the people in jail – and do not forget Bambi L’Amour, Andorra Marks, Kenny Messner, and other gay people in jail – come and see the people at STAR House on Twelfth Street on 640 East Twelfth Street between B and C apartment 14. The people are trying to do something for all of us, and not men and women that belong to a white, middle-class white club. And that’s what you all belong to! Revolution now! Gimme a ‘G’! Gimme an ‘A’! Gimme a ‘Y’! Gimme a ‘P’! Gimme an ‘O’! Gimme a ‘W’! Gimme an ‘E! Gimme an ‘R’! huh— Gay power. Louder! Gay Power!”
O'Leary would later regret the way she treated Reveria and other trans women:
Looking back, I find this so embarrassing because my views have changed so much since then. I would never pick on a transvestite now. In the late seventies, I stayed at a hotel in Florida that was full of transvestites and transexuals. They were wonderful, darling, loveable people who I got to know as people. I got to know their lives and their stories, who they were, why they were.
O'Leary also talked about excluding trans people in gay rights activism and the hypocrisy of doing that while fighting against the exclusion of lesbians in the feminist movement:
I was involved in another conflict with transvestites around this time. It was very painful. We were working on getting the gay rights bill passed in New York City, trying to structure a bill that would be passable. Early on, the transvestites wanted to be included in the bill as a protected group. Politically, we had to say, “This doesn’t work. We are never going to get the bill through the City Council if transvestites are included in the bill. This is not what our battle is about. It’s about gay rights, not transvestite rights. We’re talking about being able to love someone of your own sex, being able to have a relationship. This is not about how we dress.”
So the transvestites were excluded from the bill, and they never got reinstated. It was an extremely hard thing to do; it was horrible. How could I work to exclude transvestites and at the same time criticize the feminists who were doing their best back in those days to exclude lesbians?
(Making History: the Struggle for Gay and Lesbian Equal Rights, 1945-1990, by Eric Marcus, p266-267)
Those last couple of quotes are very important to me because terfs will constantly say “talk to gay elders!!!1” and many gay elders, in my experience, will not only tell you that trans people were very much present in the community but will also say “we treated them like shit though, it was awful”. Because they realised oppressing other groups didn’t change their own oppression and made them just as bad as their own oppressors, which is something modern day terfs have not yet woken up to.
that somehow “growth” will lead to more money, unlike literally every single other website on planet earth that has thought this and immediately crashed and burned
that the ideal user is someone who is too stupid to use the current app and so scared of stimuli that a chronological timeline would be too intellectually taxing
that its somehow tumblr’s fault if users see things they dont like on their own dash that they cultivated themselves by following specific people on purpose
Hot take but the LGBTQ+ community needs to stop gatekeeping on the basis of labels. No exceptions.
If someone refers to themselves with extremely specific terms like xenogenders, that’s valid. If someone uses really vague blanket terms like “queer,” that’s valid. If someone doesn’t fit the textbook definition of a term like he/him lesbians, that’s valid. If someone is using an older definition of a modern term like mspec gays and lesbians, that’s valid. If someone uses a reclaimed slur, that’s valid.
Gender and sexuality are so complicated and everyone’s own experience is unique. You don’t get to tell someone else what labels they use. If they genuinely use that label, then they personally relate to it to some degree. We need to use some empathy and accept that everyone has different experiences.
kink at pride is easy af to explain to kids, idk what yall are talking about. “mommy, why is that mostly-naked man wearing leather?” because lots of gay men think it looks nice. “why is that guy on a leash with a mask?” hes playing pretend. “why does she have a whip?” she thinks its fun. you know how you like to play with water guns? its like that but only for grown-ups, and she wont play with anyone who doesnt want to play with her so we’re all totally safe
if your 6yo’s next question is “is that a sex thing?”, thats fucking wild and a completely different problem. for you. not really an “Us Problem” collectively for all pride-goers, tbh. something’s going on there thats hard to call the dominatrix’s fault
homophobes think that being gay is already a weird sex thing thats hard to explain to kids. did yall forget that already? why are you trying to play respectability politics for people who will never respect you?
