1.4/ 오늘도 등장했습니다. - The Secret? It’s Not the Potatoes

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The Secret? It’s Not the Potatoes

Kate Sears for The New York Times

By JULIA MOSKIN

Published: November 14, 2007

T O the brave gladiators of the Mashed Potato Wrestling Federation, it does not matter whether the potatoes are peeled beforehand or if the cooking water is correctly salted.

“You just want to make sure you don’t breathe it into your lungs,” said Steve Barone, a video producer in Minneapolis and the reigning champion of the sport, which takes place in a pit of squishy mashed potatoes. “That stuff is like concrete,” said Mr. Barone, whose pit name is Steve-O Gratin.

 

On Thanksgiving, cooks have more refined concerns. Mashed potatoes are a cornerstone of the meal, and even great culinary minds give conflicting advice on how to perfect them. Waxy or floury? Mashed or riced?

Tradition calls for beating them until your arm goes numb; molecular gastronomy insists on simmering the potatoes twice, at different temperatures, to control the starch cells. Improving on the research would seem to require biceps like baseballs and access to a particle accelerator.

But why bother? Having recently mashed 32 pounds of potatoes over a three-day period, I can say that they are good cooked in plain water, in salted water and in water mixed with milk, wine or chicken stock.

They are good made with yellow-fleshed, red-skinned, all-purpose, fingerling, organic, new-dug and supermarket potatoes.

Potatoes mashed the easy way (in a stand mixer) and the hard way (in a ricer) were more or less equally delicious.

“Mashed potatoes are very forgiving,” said Michael Chu, a California software designer with a love of garlic mashed potatoes and a Web site called Cooking for Engineers. “As an engineer, I strive for the most efficient path to an application. In this case the application is mashed potatoes that people will love. In my experience there are a variety of ways to get there.”

With a good masher, hot potatoes and enough butter and salt, cooks can accommodate religionists of the fluffy style and partisans of the creamy and dense. (This is, no doubt, as our founders would have wanted it.)

Freedom begins with the plentiful potato. Making the choice can seem dizzying, but it does not have to be.

“I’ve tried a lot of the different breeds mashed and, to tell you the truth, after a few they all start tasting pretty much the same,” said Albert Wada, chairman of the United Potato Growers of America. “I’d say the difference is subtle.”

Mr. Wada is one of the biggest potato farmers in Idaho and a third-generation grower of Russet Burbanks, the classic Idaho baking potato, so next week his inevitable choice will be an all-russet mash that is fluffy and slightly grainy and that holds up well for hours after mashing. “And no garlic or other exotic flavorings, either,” he said.

For many cooks, the compulsion to add to the mash is irresistible. It starts with a few parsnips, some carrot and celery root, a little Web research. Next thing you know, fresh lavender and goat cheese are on the shopping list.

Some cooks prefer a mash with coarse chunks of potato and bits of peel, but that is a different entity from the classic, gravy-loving American mash. So is the puddled, creamy, butter-infused French purée fashionable in restaurants; this style should be given a rest on Thanksgiving.

One recipe I tried last week called for caramelized onions, cream cheese, brown sugar, sour cream, cream, soy sauce, dried parsley and chicken bouillon granules in addition to potatoes. It took almost an hour and a half to prepare, and tasted exactly like an onion soup sour cream dip: savory, creamy and chemical.

With all these distractions it is easy to forget that a plain bowl of smooth, simple mashed potatoes can be both easy and celestial. “There are a lot of things you don’t have to worry about,” Mr. Chu said. “And a few things you do.”

First, choose your potato: floury (high in starch, like a thick, brown-skinned baking potato) or waxy (low in starch, like a thin-skinned red, white or yellow potato). Both kinds will work, together or separately (I am loyal to a combination of russets and yellows), although many recipes, especially older ones, sternly demand one or the other.

[Christoph Metzelder]

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