While you're frying up some eggs and bacon, we're cooking up something else: a way to celebrate today's food holiday.

It’s hard not to love the potato, so it seems fitting that we’re rewarded with National Potato Lovers' Month. Spuds have been around since about 8,000 B.C., and were initially grown by Peruvians.

When the Spanish conquered that part of South America, they took the tubers back to Europe.

Whether mashed, fried, baked or scalloped, here are some fun facts about the humble spud:

• In 1995, potatoes became the first vegetable to be grown in space.
• Potatoes are an excellent source of vitamin C.
• The average American eats 137.9 pounds of potatoes each year.
• Potatoes products are the second most consumed food in the U.S. after milk products.
• About 80% of a potato is water.
• Thomas Jefferson coined the phrase "French fry" after serving them listed as "potatoes served in the French manner" at the White House. He’d been on a trip to France where he tried pommes frites for the first time.
• Marie Antoinette would put potato blossoms in her hair to jazz up her outfit.