The History of Sweet Potato — The Smuggled Vine That Became Jin's Potato

The History of Sweet Potato — The Smuggled Vine That Became Jin's Potato

The sweet potato looks humble, yet a Fujian governor ordered it planted against famine and a shogun's edicts urged it on farmers across Japan.
The film follows how living vine cuttings, carried on a rope, in a pot and in relief kits, went into fields when harvests failed.

⏱ TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Chen Zhenlong's Rope From Luzon
1:40 Noguni Sokan Brings It to Okinawa
3:17 Xu Guangqi's Shanghai Trials
4:58 Lord Sweet Potato of Satsuma
6:30 Japan's 1732 Famine and Ōmishima
8:29 Aoki Kon'yō, Professor Sweet Potato
10:11 Jo Eom Brings Goguma to Korea
11:56 The Qianlong Emperor's 1786 Order
13:23 George Washington Carver's Sweet Potato Flour
15:13 Wartime Rations and Food May Day
17:20 New Guinea's Highland Revolution
18:50 Charred Tubers on Mangaia
20:39 Orange Sweet Potatoes and Vitamin A
22:40 Mozambique's 2000 Floods
24:23 DNA From Captain Cook's Leaves
27:20 The 2016 World Food Prize
29:20 Replanting After Cyclone Idai
31:28 Vine Cuttings Over Four Centuries

Subscribe for one ordinary food and the forgotten empire behind it, every week.

#history #documentary #SweetPotato #FoodHistory