Potatoes in Shakespeare’s England

When Falstaff cries, “Let the sky rain potatoes” in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Shakespeare’s audience heard more than a vegetable—they heard novelty, superstition, and even scandal. In Elizabethan and Jacobean England, the potato was still a strange newcomer from the Americas, rumored to be an aphrodisiac, a medicine, and an oddity of the garden.

This week, historian and food scholar Rebecca Earle (University of Warwick), author of Feeding the People, joins us to explore the early history of potatoes in England. Together we trace how this humble tuber arrived on English soil, why it carried bawdy associations in Shakespeare’s plays, and what it meant for early modern diets, folklore, and global trade.

From Sir Walter Raleigh myths to potato pies at aristocratic tables, discover how Shakespeare’s world first encountered the vegetable that would one day feed nations.

Listen now and dig into the surprising story of potatoes in Shakespeare’s lifetime.

Show notes and extras: www.cassidycash.com/ep388

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