Discovering a ‘healthy and tasty food’ or the presence of the potato in the work of the Viscount of Vilarinho de São Romão

Abstract

António Lobo Barbosa Teixeira Ferreira Girão, 1^st Viscount of Vilarinho de São Romão, was a prominent politician and academic on the Portuguese cultural scene whose literary and scientific activity was in line with the behavior of a typical nineteenth-century gentleman farmer: he followed and advanced scientific innovations in the field of agriculture and took part in the cultural, ideological, and political debate of his time. Within his bibliography, one product was particularly important: the potato. Despite its slow spread from the mid-18^th century onwards, this tuber began to gain prominence in the following decades. In the confluence between the writings on the potato by this nobleman from Trás-os-Montes and the socio-cultural context in which he found himself, this article will focus on analyzing the books in conjunction with contemporary production in Europe and, in this sense, concludes that this legacy was a symptom of the new ways of looking at the agricultural and culinary arts in Portugal.