🥔🍲 The Origins of Potato Soup

Potato soup couldn’t exist until potatoes were introduced to Europe in the late 1500s (they originated in the Andes of South America). Once potatoes spread across Europe in the 1600s–1700s, potato-based dishes — including soups — began to appear.

There is no single inventor of potato soup; instead, it developed in multiple regions where potatoes became common.

🇬🇧 Early European Potato Soups (1600s–1700s)

As potatoes became a staple in Ireland, Scotland, Germany, and northern France, simple potato soups appeared as cheap, filling, rural meals.

These early soups were:

• Thick, rustic, and hearty
  
  

• Often made with potatoes, onions, water or broth, and sometimes milk
  
  

• Practical for areas with tough winters or food shortages
  
  

Many early versions were closer to “potato porridge” than the creamy soups we know today.

🇫🇷 The Development of Modern Potato Soup (1700s–1800s)

France played a key role in shaping modern potato soup.

Potage Parmentier

A famous French potato-leek soup named after Antoine-Augustin Parmentier (1737–1813), who heavily promoted the potato as a food crop in France.

• The dish became popular in the late 1700s.
  
  

• It combines potatoes, leeks, broth, and cream or butter.
  
  

• It’s considered the ancestor of many modern creamy potato soups.
  
  

Vichyssoise

A chilled potato-leek soup, likely invented in the early 1900s by Louis Diat, a French chef at the Ritz-Carlton in New York.

These French soups helped elevate potato soup from a peasant dish to a refined staple.

🇩🇪🇵🇱🇷🇺 Central and Eastern European Variants (1700s–1800s)

Potato soup also developed in:

• Germany (Kartoffelsuppe)
  
  

• Poland (Zupa ziemniaczana)
  
  

• Russia and Eastern Europe
  
  

These versions often include:

• Sausage
  
  

• Root vegetables
  
  

• Herbs
  
  

• Broth-based preparations
  
  

They are still common comfort foods today.

🇺🇸 Potato Soup Comes to America (1700s–1800s)

European immigrants brought potato soup recipes to North America.

By the 1800s, American cookbooks included several kinds:

• Creamy New England potato soups
  
  

• Brothy pioneer-style soups
  
  

• Potato chowders
  
  

• Potato-and-cheese soups
  
  

Potato soup became popular because potatoes were inexpensive and widely grown.

⭐ Summary Timeline

Time

Event

Late 1500s

Potatoes introduced to Europe.

1600s–1700s

Simple potato soups appear in rural Europe.

Late 1700s

French “potage Parmentier” popularizes creamy potato-leek soup.

1800s

Potato soups spread across Europe and North America.

Early 1900s

“Vichyssoise” introduced in the U.S. Ritz-Carlton.

Today

Potato soup exists in many styles worldwide—creamy, brothy, loaded, baked-potato-style, vegan, etc.