While you may have never find out the name Eva Ekeblad , you ’ve almost sure come across her major contribution to humankind : getting people smashed out of their gourd .
Ekeblad — the case of today’sGoogle Doodleproject , which acknowledged important material body in history — was one of thefirst peopleto understand how potatoes could be used to make both flour and alcohol at a metre when they were n’t even considered primed for human intake .
Ekeblad , born in Sweden in 1724 , had heard some Germans had managed to make alcohol-dependent drinks from the vegetable . In 1746 , shebegan growingher own potatoes , experimenting and figuring out that when they were cooked , bang up , and dry out , she could make flour . The find leave to her being admitted to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences — unheard of for a char of the era .
While this breakthrough help solve Sweden ’s troublesome solid food shortage , it also allow for some enterprising types to take advantage on the fact that the dried vegetable could be distil for spirit including vodka . With oats , rye , and barley now free to feed people and famine no longer considered a widespread concern , this led to a score spike in alcoholic beverage consumption across Northern Europe . The vegetable , once found only in the aristocratic houses , develop into the common white potato .
Ekeblad ’s accomplishment is all the more impressive when you consider she could have well relegated herself to a life history of leisure time . Raised among nobility — her father was statesman Count Magnus Julius de la Gardie — she tie Count Claes Claesson Ekeblad at the age of 16 and set about oversee the family ’s properties . act in the castle kitchen as an agronomist — someone whostudies the usesfor works — she toiled on the potato before resign her finding to the Academy in 1746 .
While Ekeblad , who died in 1786 , continue a standout fellow member of her family tree diagram , she may have been outmatch by her sis - in - law , Catherine Charlotte De la Gardie , who facilitate popularize use of the smallpox vaccine .
