Potatoes have been farmed in Peru for at least 4,000 years. However, Europeans didn’t find out about them until the 16th century. In 1524 the Spanish landed in South America and found all kinds of new things to eat: tomatoes, peanuts, cacao beans, hot peppers, and potatoes. A journal entry by an anonymous member of a Spanish expedition in 1536 described the potatoes he found in the Andean village of Sorocota as dark and small, almost as small as peanuts.