Episode 12: I’m Tired, Potatoes (10/1/2020)

You ever feel just like… a little sad? You ever feel a little sad? If you’re listening to this in the future, it will be helpful for you to know that today is September 30, 2020, the day after the first presidential debate, and… oh boy. I’m sorry if you were expecting something serious today, but the presidential debate was a whole lot and so I’m going to rank the ways of cooking potatoes from worst to best.

Look, everything is a lot right now, and I’m not here to deny the fact that we should be paying attention to important things. Of course we should pay attention to the storm around us. It’s nearly impossible not to. But I’m not going to make a podcast about it today. Today, I’m taking ten ways to cook potatoes, and ranking them completely subjectively. I hope you have a good time. Ten is an arbitrary number, it’s just the number of potato recipes that I’ve both had and have strong opinions on.

Alright, coming in at number ten, we have gnocchi. Gnocchi is a type of pasta that’s usually made by mixing potatoes, flour, and sometimes egg, and then formed into little dumplings. They’re cute, sure, and who knows, maybe I’ve just had not great gnocchi, but if you’re going to eat potatoes, why this? It seems like a lot of work and hard to get right. Fun fact, in Italian, a singular piece of gnocchi is called a gnocco, which comes from the word for knot, like a knot in a piece of wood. I guess the shape is similar? I don’t know. Confusing etymology, lots of work, gnocchi comes in last.

Number nine may be controversial, given that I live in North Carolina, but it’s potato salad. I actually kind of like potato salad, but only sometimes. I have to be in a really specific mood to enjoy cold potatoes with mayonnaise and eggs. I know it’s a Southern classic, but I really don’t see the appeal. It’s the same with gnocchi, you know, like, if you’re going to eat potatoes, why this? I think it usually goes with barbecue or other meat-heavy dishes, so I kind of get why you would want something a little cold, something with some fiber or some vitamins, if you put herbs or celery in there. So it’s good for certain occasions, but let’s be honest, at the end of the potluck, there’s still going to be potato salad left over. Not good enough, number 9.

I think that number eight will have to be potato soup. Now, I like a good potato soup. We made potato soup once in my Foods class, I think for our knife skills lab. For you adults out there, Foods is just butchered Home Economics, so it’s only about cooking, but my teacher wasn’t all that invested, so it was… well, I didn’t learn that much. Someone set something on fire in the microwave. Some of the stove burners didn’t work. Most relevantly, nobody knew how to use knives safely, or really at all. So everybody’s soup had different shapes of potatoes and carrots and… celery? Does celery go in potato soup? Onions? This class was almost two years ago now and I think I blocked out most of it. Anyway, that soup was not good potato soup, and so I did not like it. Eighth place.

Alright, so this is where we get into ways to make potatoes that are mostly good, almost all good, but I said I was going to rank them, so there has to be a seventh place, and that seventh place is going to potato chips. I know! I know. Potato chips are really popular and they’re in literally every store. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a store that sold food and had no potato chips. But personally, I think potato chips are just… not that good? I’m more of a tortilla chip person myself. I think that homemade potato chips are good, when they’re cut a little thicker and not just completely transformed into oil and salt. But the commercially sold potato chips, the ones that are whisper thin and crispy and coat your mouth and hands and everything around you in oil, I think those are useless. Why eat that. Eat a Sun Chip. Seventh place.

In sixth place, I’m going to put potato pancakes. I’m also lumping hashbrowns into this category. Now, these go by a lot of names, since a lot of cultures made them, and so they can be made in a lot of different ways. Maybe you have some leftover mashed potatoes, but you don’t actually want mashed potatoes, so you mix them with something binding and fry them in oil and put salt on them and eat them and yum, new meal. Works great. In Ashkenazi Jewish tradition, potato pancakes called latkes are made more often from shredded potatoes and matzo meal. Matzo is a kind of very simple flatbread made from flour and water, and matzo meal is just ground up matzo. Latkes are usually eaten at Hanukkah, but aren’t limited exclusively to that holiday. Hanukkah, by the way, is not the most important holiday in Jewish traditions. Yom Kippur, which was observed this past Sunday and Monday, is actually considered the most holy day in the Jewish calendar. It’s the day of atonement, where people try to right any wrongs they have done and make amends. But we learn about Hanukkah because it’s near the same time as Christmas and it’s supposed to be inclusive even though it’s actually not that helpful. Anyway, potato pancakes. Good, but you don’t usually make them unless you have leftover potatoes. Sixth place.

Fifth place – ooh, we’re getting into top five territory now – fifth place goes to baked potatoes. I know not everyone wants to eat an entire potato for their meal, but for me, I think it’s incredible. You can put so much on baked potatoes. Cheese, bacon, onions, beans, chives, chili, salsa, anything you want. Love it. But only sometimes. Sometimes, that isn’t what you want. Sometimes you want potatoes to stay a side dish. And that’s okay. Love you baked potatoes, but it’s still fifth place.

Alright, fourth place has been contentious in my house, because my sister thinks it should be in first, but in fourth place comes our friend the tater tot. I love tater tots, I promise. They’re great. But as my dad says, they’re a one trick pony. A tater tot is a tater tot is a tater tot, you know? You know what to expect when you get one, and you’re not often let down. Sometimes they’re too mushy, or too dry, but usually, they’re a safe bet. Thank you tater tots, for being the stability we need in these trying times. You still get fourth place though.

We’re on to our podium finishers now!

Coming in third place, an iconic potato form, is the french fry. French fries are great nearly any way you go about it. They come in many shapes, which is very pleasing to my inner child. Crinkle cut, steak fries, waffle fries, curly fries, and the good ol’ reliable shoestring fry. I’m here for the shoestring fries, man! French fries have good vibes. I don’t know anybody who dislikes fries, in some shape or another. Despite all of this, however, they just don’t match up to the near perfection of second and first place.

Okay, my second place finisher may surprise you, so brace yourself. The second best method of potato preparation is… potato hash. No, not hashbrowns, those are over with potato pancakes. Potato hash is an entirely different dish. Potatoes chopped up small, fried in a pan or roasted over a fire, mixed in and cooked with sausage, onions, peppers, cheese, whatever you want in there. This is nearly the pinnacle of potato preparation. You don’t have to think too hard when you’re eating it, it’s just straight comfort food. It reminds me of camping, of being out in the woods and being able to have more fun and be more creative when you’re cooking. This one almost took first place for me. But, obviously, it didn’t. So what is first place, the best potato preparation of them all? I bet you can guess it.

Mashed potatoes. Did you guess? I hope this isn’t a big surprise, because mashed potatoes are far and above the rest, save for possibly potato hash. In my family, a huge pot of mashed potatoes is a must at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and there’s never any left over. If there is, it’s eaten within the next day at most. For something that takes a lot of effort to make – peeling the potatoes if you don’t want peel, boiling them, mashing them down, mixing them with butter or milk or whatever you use to make them fluffy. But they’re sheer perfection. Even the simplest mashed potatoes are great, and they can be elevated really well too. I’m partial to bacon and sauteed leek, which may be an odd combination but it’s really quite good.

French fries – 3rd place, potato hash – 2nd place, and mashed potatoes – 1st place

I know some of you may disagree with me on my potato ranking, which is fine. Feel free to hit me up on Twitter and tell me all the reasons I’m wrong. I won’t respond, but I’ll read them and probably laugh, so go for it! That’s @FastFactsPod, by the way.

Thank you for listening to Fast Facts for Gen Z. We’ll return to our regularly scheduled programming next week, but some days, you just feel like ranking some potatoes, you know? Much love, y’all. This is Callie, signing off.