Mash

From sexy:

A FEW NOTES ON MASHED POTATOES: Number 1 - don't try and be a fucking hero with the mashed potatoes. Let me lay it out for you: potatoes, milk, butter, salt n pepper. That’s it. Don't put in any fucking sour cream, don't put rosemary/parsley in it etc. I don't wanna look down at my mashed potatoes and see green. I don’t know what sliced almonds are for, but they are NOT for potatoes. You wanna show off fine, but leave the mashed potatoes alone. Number 2 - the last couple of years I've noticed more and more people cooing "ooooh, I want lumps in my mashed potatoes!" Christ. "more lumps"; I somehow get the vibe that these idiots somehow thinks that this makes them more rustic, more down-homey, more "real." Maybe it's because I've heard/overheard this from a million hipsters since I've come to Williamsburg. An accoutrement perhaps to the wearing-dirty-looking-clothes-that-cost-$600-and-John-Deere-trucker hats look, I suppose. And it seems to me like the richer they are, the more they gotta make sure you heard them, that they gotta have their precious fucking lumps. Rich man's guilt. 'Daddy bought me another car, I'd better not get creamy mashed potatoes.' Shut up. They're fucking potatoes, I like em lumpy, smooth, creamy, whatever. You popping a hammy jumping up to proclaim your love of lumps in your potatoes does not make you a hero to the working class. A final word on this: if one more person calls them "smashed potatoes" Im punching them in the fucking gullet (Rachel Ray, I'm looking at you).

I was about to go fucking bananas when I saw this article, imagining whack shit being put in. But he gets it exactly right: salt. pepper. butter. milk. TECHNIQUE.

It wasn't just that I was a wuss (I was), but because after making hundreds of pounds of mashed potatoes for weeks, I grew attached to them the way they were. I realized that they reach their highest form not through putting things into them (even a shit-ton of butter), but through technique, by knowing how to cook and dry the potatoes so they mash up fluffy, how to keep them hot so they stay smooth and velvety, how to add the milk and butter so that they're rich and round but still taste above all like potatoes.