Abstract
The introduction of new foods which subsequently became staples, to cultural groups previously unfamiliar with that type of food, has given rise to a special class of anecdote which seems designed to explain why they were slow to adopt what is now highly valued. Two examples are given below-one from Britain concerning the introduction in the late sixteenth century of the root crop Solanum tuberosum, the potato, to the Irish who had no long-standing familiarity with a starchy root crop, and one from New Zealand which describes the introduction in the early nineteenth century of the first wheat crop to the Māori whose staples had been previously confined to root crops. In each story there is a key figure (the agent of introduction) who uses his inside knowledge to show both how ignorant the local people are and how valuable the new crop will be.