mashed potato time

Mrs. Pincus and I had Thanksgiving dinner at our son's house this year. This has all the makings of an annual tradition, as this is the third consecutive year that we have had the holiday dinner there. As plans were beginning to be made, my son's girlfriend requested mashed potatoes as a side dish. My wife usually takes care of preparing and bringing dessert, but this time she happily volunteered to fulfill the mashed potatoes request, as well.

In past years, mashed potatoes were a cinch. Just pop open a box of instant mashed potatoes — readily available at any and all supermarkets in a variety of brands and flavors (well, all are basically "potato" flavor) —  add in some milk and, after just a few minutes of stirring — voila! — you got yourself some mashed potatoes! However, the request for mashed potatoes came with the stipulation that they be actual, real-live mashed potatoes. Like from actual whole potatoes. So, on our weekend shopping trip to stock up on required items for our Night Before Thanksgiving dessert party (now in its 40th year!), we grabbed a big bag of potatoes. Like actual, from the ground potatoes. And we were going to make us some good old fashioned mashed potatoes. Just like the pilgrims and the pioneers and our mothers made! Those cardboard boxes of  dehydrated flakes would be passed over in favor of the "Real McCoy" or the "Real McPotato," as the case may be.

Now, I will happily admit that I don't know the first thing about cooking. I can make toast — that requires a legitimate kitchen appliance, so, in my opinion, that may count as cooking. But anything that takes place on top of the stove and combines multiple ingredients in some type of pot or pan... well, that's out of my wheelhouse. My lack of cooking skills considered, Mrs. Pincus would be preparing the mashed potatoes for our Thanksgiving dinner. First, she peeled a generous amount of potatoes. Then she put the potatoes in a large pot on top of one of the lit burners on our stove top. (The pot was larger than the one I had previously used to make hard-boiled eggs. Hey! Wait a second! Maybe I do know how to cook.... a little!) To be honest, I got bored. I left the kitchen briefly and missed out on what actually took place with the potatoes and the pot and the flame from the stove. I returned to the kitchen to find my wife working the soft, now-boiled, potatoes in the pot. She asked me to "google" a recipe for mashed potatoes to see what other ingredients were to be added. I said, "Why do you need a recipe? Everything you need to know is right in the name! Mashed potatoes! It's right there!"  She gave me a look as she added a few pats of margarine and a splash or two of almond milk. (The potatoes had to remain vegan-friendly.) She continued chopping and mixing... and  mashing. It looked like fun and something I could probably do without risk of ruining them. 

Our kitchen has a lot of gadgets and implements and such, but, curiously, we do not own a proper "potato masher." Instead, Mrs. P was breaking down the boiled tubers with a metal spatula, using its long blade to cut the bulky potatoes into smaller pieces. And it seemed to be working. Very well, as a matter of fact! I wanted in! I gently took the spatula from my wife's hand and began to mimic the chopping motions I had observed. "Are you sure you want to do this?," Mrs. P asked. "Sure!," I replied with all the confidence of a contestant on Chopped who fancies himself the greatest chef in the world. I continued the task of breaking those big potatoes in to small potato pieces. 

After a long period of time — longer than I expected (a time frame based on nothing in particular) — these mashed potatoes looked like the mashed potatoes I had seen over the years. They looked like the ones my mom made often to please my demanding "meat and potatoes" father. They looked like the ones I never ate but was forced to order in restaurants when my dinner order came with my choice of two vegetables and "French fries" was not an option. Goddamn it! They looked like mashed potatoes!

We began to pack up everything we would need to take to my son's house for Thanksgiving dinner. It was decided that the mashed potatoes would make their debut in the very same pot they were prepared in. This way they could just be heated up on his stove. 

The table was set at my son's house and he was busy in the kitchen making last minute preparations. He brought every component of the meal to the table, except the pot of Pincus-style mashed potatoes, which he left on the store. Everyone would have to scoop them from the pot themselves, as his dining room table was now fully loaded with other items. There was just no room for a giant pot of potatoes. Everyone's plate accommodated a big slice of "turkey," (Three of the four people at dinner were vegetarians, so Tofurky was served as the main course. None of your fucking comments, please.) some homemade cranberry sauce (a Mrs. Pincus specialty), a chunk of pumpkin cornbread (provided by my son's girlfriend) and not one.... not two.... but three kinds of potatoes! That's right! Our first attempt at mashed potatoes faced competition from canned sweet potatoes (not yams! do not call them "yams!") and little roasted fingerlings that I thought, at first glimpse, were mushroom caps.

Everything was great! I even had seconds — an entire duplicate of my first plate. And the mashed potatoes? Well, they were eaten. With little to no fanfare. No one said: "Hey! These are the best mashed potatoes I ever had! And they are mashed so well, too!" They mostly just said: "Please pass the potatoes" because there were so many to pass.

A few years ago, I had a job interview for a position of writing a blog for a pharmaceutical company. I am not now, nor have I even been, a professional writer. But I told them, if given enough information, I think I could write a blog about anything. I told them that I had maintained two personal blogs for over ten years and had written about many topics. At the time of the interview, I had just written a lengthy post about hard-boiled eggs. And now I just wrote nine paragraphs about mashed potatoes. Needless to say, I didn't get that job. 

But I can boil eggs and, now, I can make mashed potatoes.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

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. 

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

hot potato, hot potato

When I first started to write this story, it was a happy story. But, if you wait too long, happy stories might turn sad. Spoiler Alert! This story turns sad.

One day, last December, I had a few days off from work, so I met my son for lunch. My son, a Center City Philadelphia dweller, suggested we meet at a place that he had been meaning to try. So I, a firmly-planted suburbanite, hopped on the train and traveled into town. Around 11:45 a.m, fifteen minutes before "official lunch time," I arrived at our predetermined destination — Smoke's Poutinerie, a funky, little eatery that opened in the summer of 2017 on Philadelphia's famous "hippest street in town," South Street. A few minutes later, my son E. came strolling around the corner in his usual manner, water bottle in hand and bike helmet swinging by his side, having just returned his contracted bicycle to one of the nearby Indego Bike Share docking kiosks that have popped up around the Center City area. Together, we entered the mysterious and exciting world of poutine.

Poutine, for my non-Canadian readers, is the unofficial "official" food of Canada. Although the actual origin is in dispute, it seems to have first been served in Quebec in the 1950s in small restaurants called casse-croûtes, essentially greasy spoon diners. Much in the same way arguments have erupted over the origination of the French Dip sandwich or the all-American hamburger, no less than three establishments lay claim to inventing poutine, with one — Le Roy Jucep — earning a government-issued trademark, much to the dismay of Le Lutin qui rit and La Petite Vache, the other claimants.

The dish — a big pile of french fries covered with cheese curds and brown gravy — is comfort food for our neighbors to the north. In its early days, poutine was negatively received and mocked as "food for commoners," but now it is a source of cultural pride. Numerous restaurants serve their own signature interpretation of the concoction. Even popular fast food chains have jumped on the band wagon, including versions from McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's and Dairy Queen. But in the United States, poutine is relatively unknown.

In 2008, Canadian entrepreneur Ryan Smoklin opened his first Smoke's Poutinerie in Toronto to much acclaim. He expanded his gravy-and-cheese-smothered empire to 150 locations across his native Canada. Not satisfied with keeping his successful venture sequestered in those ten provinces and three territories, Smoklin was determined to spread the comfort cuisine all over the world. In December 2014, the fine folks of Berkeley, California got its first taste of poutine. The company announced plans to open a whopping 800 Smoke's locations in the United States. Last summer, Philadelphia got its Smoke's. Actually, Philadelphia was doubly blessed, when a place called "Shoo Fry" opened up in the former location of the wildly popular (but mysterious closed) Underdogs, an eclectic hot dog joint just off renowned Rittenhouse Square. Poutine was nearly unheard-of in the City of Brotherly Love... now we have two "poutineries!"

My son and I studied the menu in the cramped restaurant that barely accommodated two small booths and a counter top to allow in-store dining. Our server/cook took our orders — two vegetarian versions of traditional poutine made with non-meat based brown gravy. He disappeared back to the food prep area as we seated ourselves on stools by the window and waited. Within minutes, we were presented with a steaming cardboard container stuffed to overflow with crispy fries, glistening dollops of cheese curds and a light beige gravy enveloping the whole she-bang. My son grabbed two plastic forks from a dispenser next to the cash register and I snagged a fistful of paper napkins I knew — from the looks of things — we would desperately need. We dug in for our first sampling of Canada's national food.

Oh. My. Goodness. It was delicious, despite its "pre-digested" appearance. It was so delicious, in fact, that I scarfed the whole thing down in a matter of minutes, as though I was in some sort of competition. My son, who ate at a slower, more human-like pace, wrapped a protective arm around his container, pulling it closer after he caught me eyeing up his uneaten portion. I sipped my Diet Coke until he finished, resigning myself to the fact I was getting none of his.... but it was sooooo goooood! Did I really want to place another order? Probably not. I didn't want to look like a glutton, although this would have been nothing new for my son to witness. I refrained. I was satisfied with what I had eaten and I would make time for a return visit to Smoke's. Perhaps I would even try something else from their menu. Maybe a different take on the poutine theme.

Here comes the sad part.

Just last week, my son called to tell me that Smoke's on South Street has closed. For good. And, it appears — according to their website — there are only five locations in the United States (the one in Ann Arbor, Michigan is so close to the international border that it might as well be counted among the Canadian locations). Alas, it seems that global expansion of the Smoke's Poutine Empire has come to a halt. People in the United States just haven't warmed up to poutine. To drive the point home, Shoo Fry has also closed its cheese-curd-guarding doors leaving Philadelphia — once again — a "poutine-free" zone.

I'm glad I got to taste and experience poutine. Maybe one day it'll catch on in the United States, eh?

www.joshpincusiscrying.com