I never realized it before, but I think I might be obsessed with potatoes. For one thing, I eat them every day. Some people can’t go a day without coffee, but I can’t go a day without a potato…make that two potatoes.
When I go shopping for them, I always pick up the bag and sniff the potatoes through the little holes in the plastic. This has caused more than a few people to stare at me as if I have some sort of a weird potato-fetish.
Still, it would take more than a few bewildered stares to keep me from wanting to stick my schnoz into the bags. Potatoes are supposed to smell like fresh soil. If they smell like anything else - mildew, cow manure, farmers' feet - I won't buy them. During my pre-potato-sniffing days, I had too many potentially fabulous meals (okay, a few homemade French fries) get ruined when I trustingly used unsniffed potatoes that ended up tasting like old sneakers (not that I’m an expert on sneaker flavors).
The only problem this past year has been trying to discreetly sniff the potatoes while I’m wearing a mask. I did manage to sneak a few short sniffs instead of my usual lengthy deep breaths, but at least twice I ended up buying potatoes that when I removed them from the bag at home, smelled like a wet towel that had been sitting in a gym bag for about two weeks. This taught me to also check the plastic bags for any drops of moisture clinging to the inner layer. Moisture has a way of quickly making potatoes turn rotten or mildewed, neither of which will enhance the taste of your potato salad.
And then there is the green-potato controversy. Nothing upsets me more when I peel a potato than to discover it’s green. But even after all these years, I still have no clue if a green potato is safe to eat because the available info online is divided about 50-50.
Half say, “Just cut off the green parts and the rest of the potato is still fine to eat,” while the rest say, “Green potatoes are toxic! Toss out the whole potato because even the parts that aren’t green yet are going through a chemical transformation that can cause your (insert any body organ) to fall out!”
There’s one potato company that tints its plastic bags brown. I can’t count how many times I’ve purchased a bag of those potatoes, thinking they were brown, but then when I removed them from the bag at home, discovered their outer skins actually were green – and their innards were even greener. I’m tempted to eat a bunch of their green potatoes and then after my (insert any body organ) falls out, sue them for millions for misrepresenting their product.
Even worse, I read an article online that said the skin of the potato never should be eaten because it’s usually where all of the fertilizer and pesticides accumulate. “Peel the potatoes and toss out the skins!” One doctor wrote.
When I think back to all of the cheese-and-bacon-filled potato-skin appetizers I’ve eaten over the years, I should have been dead a long time ago...or currently resemble some alien mutant.
Another thing that’s upsetting about potatoes is the variety of sizes in a single bag. I found this gigantic potato in the bottom of a bag of potatoes, and then a super-small one in the same bag. The nutritional information on the bag said: “Serving size – one potato – 110 calories. Well, for my 110 calories, I’ll bet you can guess which one I'll go with.
So am I truly obsessed with potatoes? Nah, I don’t think so. Time to take my dogs, Russet and Yukon Gold for a walk now.
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Sally Breslin is an award-winning syndicated humor columnist who has written regularly for newspapers and magazines for most of her adult life. She is the author of several novels, including: “There’s a Tick in my Underwear!” “Heed the Predictor” and “Inside the Blue Cube.” Contact her at: sillysally@att.net.
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