Who introduced the potato to Europe? No one knows for certain, though the credit is usually given to Hieronymus Cardan, a monk. Sir Walter Raleigh was not its introducer. He planted potatoes on his Irish estates in 1586, but the vegetable had been known to the Spaniards for many years previously. Both Sir John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake have been credited with its introduction into England, the former in 1563, the latter in 1580, but it is now held that they brought home the "sweet potato," not the ordinary variety. Drake's claim is upheld on a statue of the navigator at Offenburg, in Germany. An inscription on the base reads: "Sir Francis Drake, introducer of the Potato into Europe in the year 1580".
