The wind had already turned sharp that year, sweeping down from the Odenwald and rattling the shutters of the Streib farmhouse. Phillip Streib stood in the doorway of the barn, arms folded, watching the last of the rye fields fade into brittle gold. The harvest had been thin again — too much rain in June, too little in August — and everyone in Steinsfurt felt the unease settling in their bones.

The wind was scraping across empty fields as Phillip George, and his wife walked into the barn smelling the damp straw and mold that was creeping into the few grain sacks that were suppose to get them through the winter.

That evening, the village gathered in the church hall — not for worship, but for reckoning. The pastor had called them together to speak of the Kartoffel.
Back in spring, he had urged every family to plant the strange new tuber. “It may be the only crop that survives,” he’d said. “The Elector himself recommends it.”
But now, with winter pressing in, the mood was tense.
“They’re for pigs!” one farmer shouted.
“They grow underground like weeds,” muttered another.

“My cousin says they’re poisonous,” a woman whispered.

“They taste like dirt,” someone else added.
“Cow food,” came the final verdict, echoed by several voices.

Behind the barn, in a patch of soil he’d half-heartedly planted months ago, the potato plants had withered to yellow stalks.

He knelt, dug into the cold earth, and unearthed a handful of knobby, dirt-covered tubers.

They looked like stones. He turned one over in his hand, uncertain.

Maria joined him, holding a lantern.
“They’re ugly,” she said.
“They might be enough,” he replied.

That night, she scrubbed them clean, sliced them thin, and boiled them plain. The taste was bitter, earthy, unfamiliar.

Johann Philipp made a face and pushed his bowl away.
Maria frowned. “They need help.”

The next evening, she tried again — this time with onions, a bit of smoked bacon, and the last of the carrots and parsnips from the root cellar.

The pot simmered over the hearth, filling the kitchen with a scent that was richer, warmer.
Phillip tasted first. He nodded.

Maria followed. “Better,” she said.
Johann Philipp slurped eagerly. “I like it!” he declared.
Outside, the wind howled. But inside, the fire glowed, and the humble Kartoffel — once dismissed as cow food — had earned its place at the family table.

No one knew it yet, but this simple soup would become a staple for generations.
And decades later, when Johann Philipp was a father himself, he would ladle out bowls Kartoffelsuppe never imagining that his first taste of potato soup had been the beginning of a new tradition.

Later my Johan Philipp's grand daughter would be making Kartoffelsuppe for my family.

I love sharing it with you and keeping the tradition going.

Now potatoes went from suspect to my grandma's favorite food. She would eat small unpeeled new potatoes, with a dab of real butter and say that was better than dessert.

Her son, my dad felt it wasn't a meal without potatoes and bread.

It is an amazing thing to think that possibly I wouldn't be here if my Great x3 grandpa hadn't taken a chance and planted those potatoes in the 1700's.