Last year at spring break, our granddaughter, a student at the University of Georgia, and three of her college friends stopped at our home on their way to Florida for a week of sun and fun. I told her that I would have supper for them whenever they arrived. She protested, saying it might be late. I assured her we wanted them to eat with us.
When they arrived around 9 p.m., I was ready for them with all the fixings for turkey or ham sandwiches on whole wheat bread, deviled eggs (a favorite of my granddaughter), pita chips, a plate of fresh fruit, brownies and tea. Three of the girls made sandwiches while the fourth took lettuce, tomato slices, cheese, turkey and ham to make a salad. I offered her a choice of salad dressings.
As they were preparing their plates, one of them exclaimed, “I’m so glad this isn’t a mashed potato kind of dinner!” We all laughed. In fact, conversation at the dinner table was lively and fun to listen to. They cleaned their plates and I refilled the plate of fruit, most of which they ate.
When they left the next morning, they took the remaining brownies with them. For my husband and me, the evening brought back fond memories of our college days when food served away from school could taste so good.
I purposely had chosen not to make a “mashed potato kind of dinner” for three reasons. Because time of arrival was iffy in the first place, I couldn’t coordinate cooking with eating. A “mashed potato dinner”, to be enjoyable, must be set hot on the table as guests are seated. Mashed potatoes and its accompaniments are nor appetizing at all when cold.
Secondly, I didn’t know how late we would eat and few people enjoy a heavy meal right before bedtime. And in the third place, I really thought my menu might appeal more to young women on a spring night than a heavy winter or holiday meal. I was happy that I had guessed correctly. If this had been a grandson and his friends, I might have reconsidered this menu.
+++++
As i’ve told friends this story, I’ve pondered the roommate’s comment: “I’m so glad this isn’t a mashed potato kind of dinner!” It was a surprising observation because mashed potatoes rank with mac and cheese, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, grilled cheese sandwiches, chocolate chip cookies and ice cream as “comfort foods,” those soothing dishes from childhood that we seek out when we’re weary, discouraged or depressed.
For me, my mother’s twice baked potatoes is still my favorite way to eat mashed potatoes. Comfort foods are full of carbs or sugar or both. From their inceptions, both TV shows and big screen movie plots have relied on large servings of such comfort foods to convey weariness, discouragement or depression.
According to the Mashed Potato website, the potato was first found in the South American Andes. It probably was first cultivated some 10,000 years ago. The Spanish conquistadors discovered them in Peru and introduced them to Europe during the 16th century.
After Europeans accepted the fact that the new tuber wasn’t poisonous, it became a staple across the continent. Because it became such an important part of the diet in Ireland, a great starvation, the infamous potato famine, devastated that country’s population between 1845 and 1849 when the crop became diseased. For mere survival, many immigrated from their home country; more than one and a half million left Ireland for North America and Australia.
The potato is low in saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium. It’s a good source of Vitamin C., Vitamin B6, Potassium and Manganese. However as most of us have discovered, it’s almost tasteless without condiments. Yet when we begin to add butter, milk, sour cream, cheese, bacon and all the good stuff that makes the vegetable so tasty, we diminish the tuber’s healthy benefits.
Pick up most recipe books or check on-line and one can find multiple recipes for mashed potatoes. Top chefs claim that deliciousness depends on the right blend of potato, butter, milk and any other ingredients. And the foodstuff is so popular that for time saving ease, one can purchase boxes of instant potatoes or already prepared mashed potatoes in the dairy, meat or deli sections of a grocery store.
+++++
For a brief time in the 1960s, a dance craze resembling the Twist, but called the “Mashed Potato,” was popular. It soon gave way to the “Monster Mash” by adding monster gestures with the arms and hands. Neither dance lasted as long as the potato itself. USDA reports that the average American consumes more than 120 pounds of potatoes annually, most often in the form of French fries or potato chips. Really? The potato, with the great variety of preparation, truly has become a staple of the American’s diet.
Perhaps American author Louisa May Alcott in Little Men defends this tuber best. “Money is the root of all evil, and yet it is such a useful root that we cannot get on without it any more than we can without potatoes.”
Even though the potato has assumed the role of a food staple, there are those times, like on a warm spring night, when all of us want to refrain from a “mashed potato kind of dinner.”
2013
Komentar