Potatoes weren’t very popular in France at first. This changed when Antoine-Augustin Parmentier took matters into his own hands to promote the potato as a food source for humans in France. He’d surround his potato patch with guards during the day, to suggest valuable goods were growing there, and then remove the guards at night so people would come and steal the potatoes. You might ask why he would do such a thing. Well, during the Seven Years War, when Parmentier was a prisoner of war, he was given potatoes and discovered their nutritional value. Before Parmentier’s efforts, the French thought that potatoes were poisonous and disgusting. Parmentier’s potato patch was a plot of land near Neuilly, west of Paris. There he grew potatoes to promote their consumption. Parmentier’s efforts were successful in making potatoes a staple of the French diet.
While trying to promote potatoes, Parmentier did crazy things, like holding dinners where he served potato dishes. I can only imagine how hard it was to get people to try 
his dishes. He also gave bouquets of potato flowers to the king and queen…seriously!! I wonder how the king and queen reacted to that!! Parmentier also surrounded his potato patch with armed guards during the day, and instructed them to let thieves steal the potatoes at night. That way, the people thought the potatoes were some kind of exotic good of great value. He also published a Treatise on the Culture and Use of the Potato, Sweet Potato, and Jerusalem Artichoke in 1789. This man was totally dedicated to the potato.
Born on August 12, 1737, Parmentier was a French pharmacist and agronomist, who was best remembered as a vocal promoter of the potato as a food source for humans in France and throughout Europe, but his many other contributions 
to nutrition and health included establishing the first mandatory smallpox vaccination campaign in France (under Napoleon beginning in 1805, when he was Inspector-General of the Health Service) and pioneering the extraction of sugar from sugar beets. Parmentier also founded a school of breadmaking and studied methods of conserving food, including refrigeration.
Parmentier died on December 13, 1813. He was 76. He is buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. His grave is ringed by potato plants. He was also honored with his name given to a long avenue in the 10th and 11th arrondissements (and a station on line 3 of the Paris Métro). His bronze statue was placed at Montdidier and surveys Place Parmentier from its high socle, while below, in full marble relief, seed potatoes are distributed and another monumental statue of Parmentier, by French sculptor Adrien Étienne Gaudez, in the square of the town hall of Neuilly-sur-Seine.
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