[sinanju]

That potato stuff would be interesting if true (the potato being from South America. I know the tomato was considered poisonous (bearing obvious characteristics of the deadly nightshade family) until yankee sailors encountering it in mediterranean cuisine brought it back to it's land of origin. As for JFK, who doesn't have at least a little irish blood somewhere in the old woodpile.

[Salamander]

That's weird.
I thought potatoes were introduced to Europe from *here*.

[kyguy]

The potato, too, is a member of the nightshade family and, if Alton Brown and his Nutritional Anthropoligst are to be believed, most of Europe didn't want much to do with it because of that. I wonder, sometimes, how mankind survived after all these crazy attempts at sticking things in our mouths (hey look, berries! Hey, look, I dry this leaf out, roll it up, light it on fire and suck on it! hey, look, 'schrooms!).

I'm suprised he hasn't used this research as an opporunity to tell Wolf Blitzer that his family took initiative in creating the potato...

[Poodlebrain]

Yeah, but were there any slave owners in the family tree? Going back to 1720 there is a strong possibility that someone may have benefited from the unpaid labor of another human being. Do you think Kerry would get 92% of the black vote if he was descended from slave owners?