I just read What If and it talked about how important the potato was to feeding the growing populations of Europe and it claims that without the potato many of the wars wouldn't have been on the scale they occurred. It also claimed the potato was more important as a discovery in the New World than gold or silver. So my question is: How important was the potato as a discovery?
TL;DR: How important is the discovery of the potato?
Since no-one has replied ill just add this here:
The discovery of the potato through the Colombian exchange basically allowed the cities of Europe to expand and have a massive population boom due to its nutritional value and the way it did not depend as heavily on the seasons to grow as wheat and other grains did. It had 3x the yield that wheat did on the same amount of land, could grow in inhospitable regions, and was quite tasty and versatile.
An example would be Ireland which relied almost exclusively on the potato for sustenance after which the Potato famine led to millions of deaths and even more people immigrating outwards.
As my lecturer said: "It wouldnt be a stretch to say the potato kickstarted the industrial era"
So while this doesnt really answer your main question, it should give you an idea on how important the potato is. Also fried potatoes are awesome.