baking potatoes, baking in the sun

...and now, a few words about potatoes. 

Who doesn't love potatoes? Kids, adults, everyone loves potatoes. Although technically a vegetable, potatoes are separated in a category all to themselves. On restaurant menus, dinner entrees are noted to be accompanied by potato and vegetable. Potatoes stand alone, while all the other vegetables are lumped together. Similar to steak, you have you choice as to how you'd like your potato prepared — baked? twice baked? French-fried? mashed? You don't get that option with other vegetables. "You'd like your potato baked with butter, sour cream and chives? Very good, sir. And your carrots? Fuck it! You get 'em on a fucking plate!" That's right. Artichokes may be classy, but they are in the same category as lowly peas.

Potatoes were first grown and cultivated in Peru for thousands of years. They were brought to Ireland by Sir Walter Raleigh from a South American exploration in 1599. They didn't make it to the rest of Europe for another forty years and even then, they weren't particularly popular. In the early 1600s, the Governor of the Bahamas sent a gift package featuring potatoes to President Thomas Jefferson as a gesture of goodwill. Jefferson served them at the White House, giving them aristocratic cred. The influx of Irish immigrants to the United States strengthened their popularity among the common citizens and working class. 

Potatoes are part of our being, our culture. If Forrest Gump's friend Bubba decided to use potatoes as the main commodity of his proposed restaurant, he could have offered more varied cooking methods than he imagined for shrimp. Fried, boiled, baked, mashed, au gratin, hash browned, cottage fries, curly fries.... you get it. Potatoes are so revered, for goodness sakes, they are mentioned — by name — in a common idiom. "Meat and potatoes" means "of fundamental importance." While the "meat" is undetermined and unimportant, the potatoes are specific and not to be confused with any other vegetable. "Meat and broccoli" doesn't have that same strong, basic inflection. Neither does "meat and string beans."

In the 1950s, potatoes got into the lucrative toy market with the introduction of Mr. Potato Head. Hasbro marketed the popular toy to children, using the potato as the exclusive vessel on which the plastic-pronged eyes, feet and other molded body parts were applied. It wasn't until almost a decade later that other vegetables (and bandwagon-jumping fruits) muscled in on the celebrated tuber's rightful territory. Mr. Potato Head himself still remained popular. It was the first toy marketed with television commercials. Later, it received a co-starring role in the Toy Story film franchise, even appearing as a major character in the associated theme park attractions. Let's see zucchini make that claim.

Speaking of TV... although used in a derogatory manner, "Couch Potato" is a term for someone who just watches TV all day from the center of the sofa. I have been labeled a "Couch Potato" in my life and I really can't argue. But, once again, "potato" gets the call. Not "cabbage" or "beets" or any other vegetable. Potato! 

When I was a kid, I ate a lot of French fries. I ate a lot of mashed potatoes and I ate a lot of baked potatoes. Funny thing, though. I, like most kids, never ate the skin of my baked potatoes once the fluffy, buttery insides had been scooped out and consumed. I'd scrape the insides of the baked spuds until the skin was nearly transparent, but I wouldn't dare eat it. My mom ate the skin and always tried to convince me how "delicious" it was and how "all the vitamins" were in the skin... like I gave a shit about vitamins. If I wanted more vitamins, I'd just pop a couple more chalky-tasting Fred and Barney shaped tablets from the jar in the bathroom medicine cabinet. In the 70s, restaurants started including "Potato Skins" in the "Appetizer" sections of their menus. Essentially, they were the part of the potato I didn't eat, but loaded with cheese and bacon bits and sour cream. Before becoming a featured trendy menu item, these things were discarded once the white part of the potato was separated and mashed. Every cozy bistro-style restaurant served potato skins to, apparently, huge profits. After all, feeding customers something that was just a few steps away from being tossed in the garbage.

A more recent trend for potatoes, initially triggered by the then-popular film Napoleon Dynamite, is tater tots. In a similar fashion as potato skins, tater tots began appearing on the menus of bars and restaurants. Once only available in elementary school lunch rooms, tater tots (or just "tots") were now offered with a variety of innovative toppings, making them "cool," but they were still potatoes. 

Soon, baked potato stores started popping up in mall food courts. Offering a variety of toppings (like their spuddy cousins, the tots), these eateries were like "make your own sundae" places, but for potatoes. They merely used potatoes as a vehicle to sell chili or Sloppy Joes with a potato instead of a bun. Nobody would dream of covering a hunk of cauliflower with chili and serving it to potential customers, but put that on a big, comforting potato and you got yourself a meal without question.

Of course, French fries are ridiculously popular. Every fast food establishment prides themselves on their French fries, each claiming to be the very best of the best! Who hasn't strolled a seaside boardwalk with a giant, grease-soaked container of French fries in one hand? French fries make an excellent between-meal snack or something to hold the kids over and keep them quiet while on a marathon road trip. After all, they're healthy... right? They're natural... right? They come from the good earth! Sure, they are deep fried in old, over-cooked, fat-laden oil, but.... I did mention that they are a vegetable, right? 

Potatoes are served at every meal. Hash browns (or home fries) at breakfast. Potato chips or French fries at lunch and baked or mashed potatoes at dinner. No one asks for Brussels sprouts with their eggs. Yeah, you can get onions and peppers mixed in with your home fries, but those potatoes have to be there first. Onions and peppers alone next to a stack of pancakes just won't fly.

Recently, my wife and I have been watching what we eat very carefully. We maintain a regular diet consisting of nearly the same dinner every night. That dinner usually includes a baked potato. At first, we made them in the microwave. They were good. Actually, they were just okay. Now, they are prepared in the actual oven, where they bake directly on the middle rack for over an hour. They come out hot and fluffy with a crispy skin. How do I know the skin is crispy? I am an adult now, so I eat it. I eat potatoes like they are apples — skin and all. And no one needs to cajole me with promises of "vitamins" and "deliciousness." I found that out on my own.

That's it. Just a few words of praise — and thanks — to our friend the potato. 

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