Things get mashed
It’s that time of year when all thoughts turn to mashed potatoes. In her epic novel When Pasta Clumps, Franny Elena Jasper described what was happening in the kitchen before things got mysterious at dinnertime. Evidence indicated someone had been mashing potatoes, and Jasper recounts for eleven pages a wonderland of detail encompassing centuries of experience about a subject not thoroughly explored in literature – mashed potatoes.
Jasper postulates, “Human culinary experience has always included, even depended upon, mashing things. If you don’t go to a dentist regularly as it was for our early forbears, soft food would be important, so instinct says mash things.”
Rutabagas mash. Winter radishes lightly steamed and mashed up nicely are hearty, tangy and full of chemical attributes. Celeriac, a celery variety grown for its large knobby rootball, mashes, as do beets, winter squash, pumpkins and sweet potatoes.
Chefs with personalized aprons and websites even mash different root vegetables together – maybe turnips, parsnips, rutabagas – into creamy euphoria (if you believe the websites). Such a mashed-up dish would be a nutritious A to Z with everything you want it to be (except if they add too much butter).
Potatoes and other root vegetables store well if they are treated respectfully. Not all of us have a root cellar. C’est dommage. Nevertheless, unblemished potatoes will store for months in a cool, dark, dry pantry. A dry, dark spot and 50-60° F would be ideal for storing potatoes, so good for you if you have a spot like that.
The earliest known recipe for mashed potatoes was from a mid-17th century English cookbook. Cooks in Italy stuff mashed potatoes into a pasta wrapping and call it gnocchi. Families in Ireland simmer vegetables and meat together till done and top it with a generous layer of mashed potatoes and call it Shepherd’s Pie. People who count things claim one of every four bites of mashed potatoes in the whole wide world occurs in China. Mashed potatoes break down political and language barriers. It’s a comfort food.
Crafty folks, even me, can mix leftover mashed potatoes with chive pieces, plop it in a muffin tin, top it with wheat germ and cheese and save it for tomorrow. Makes little mashed potato muffins.
If you really wanted to, you could make waffles with mashed potatoes which goes to show some people translate ancient texts for fun, some people complain about politics but do nothing, and some people make waffles out of leftover mashed potatoes. It’s a wonderful world.
I should, at this point, acknowledge the initiative and left-to-right thinking of the person who thought of making mashed potato waffles.
But the first part is making mashed potatoes, and here’s what years of experience tells us. Get a bunch of potatoes, peel them if you want to, cut them into cubes, simmer them as long as it takes to listen to “Runnin’ Down a Dream” three times, then mash ‘em. That’s it. Some folks mix in milk and butter, and some folks don’t. Some folks sprinkle on cheese and chives, and some folks won’t. They’re your mashed potatoes, so express yourself.
When I was first out on my own – clueless, moneyless, without the internet to guide me – I would buy boxes of dehydrated potato flakes and prepare instant mashed potatoes with my evening meal. Yum! Probably not a speck of nutrition or fiber in there, but what I did I know. At some point, it dawned on me how easy it was to buy a potato and bake it, and I could mash it if I wanted to. Parents, teachers – teach your children how to bake a potato; mashing is optional.
When a dab of mashed potatoes dries on a surface, it can be difficult to simply brush off. It was this bit of trivia the detective in Franny Elena Jasper’s novel used to identify the suspect – mashed potato residue identical to the mashed potatoes in the kitchen was discovered on a spatula in the suspect’s gym bag. The lesson here: always wash your spatulas.