NEW POTATOES
The first new potatoes of the year are looked forward to from the moment seed potatoes are carefully cut and planted in late winter. Southern Appalachian folks will often rush the enjoyment of this staple of diet by grabbling (gently removed small potatoes without pulling up the entire plant) while allowing other tubers to continue growing. To feast on new potatoes gently scrape the thin skin. Don’t try to remove it all—what remains will add a bit of delicious crunch or texture to the finished dish. Small potatoes don’t need to be cut, but if your new potatoes are already rather large, cut into pieces about the size of a golf ball. Boil potatoes in salted water until they are barely fork tender. Do not overcook. Remove potatoes from water and allow to drain well. Heat butter or bacon grease in a cast iron skillet on medium high. Once pan is hot add new potatoes, turning during cooking so as to brown all sides. The browning process also works well by placing the pan in a hot oven.
TIP: New potatoes go especially well with soup beans, cornbread, and kilt lettuce.
JC
—Celebrating Southern Appalachian Food written by Jim Casada and Tipper Pressley
We haven’t grabbled out any new potatoes yet, but the ones we planted are looking mighty fine.
I did buy Granny some new potatoes down at Spud’s Shack in Murphy the other day. I bought some fresh white half runners to go with them. I knew it would tickle her to death and it did.
The following day I was down at Granny’s and she said come in here I want to show you something. It was a frying pan full of new potatoes. My they looked so good! She had the green beans bubbling along on the back eye. I said it looks like you’re going to eat good for supper. Granny said she was but it would be even better eating when the taters and beans came from our own garden 🙂
You can purchase Celebrating Southern Appalachian Food here.
Last night’s video: We Got the Tomatoes Planted.
Tipper
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My favorite springtime dish besides fresh salads is new potatoes creamed with new peas. That’s a taste of Heaven!
Y’all are making my mouth water with all this yummy crispy tater & fixin’s chatter!!! My daily fare of oatmeal (anyone else call it ‘mush’) for my breakfast, of which I am eating as I read, (It is 6:45 am here) just does not come close! 🙂
That’s exactly how Mom cooked her new taters: scrape, boil, and fry. My favorite way to cook new taters is to add them to a pot of green beans after they have been cooking for a while. I hope Granny has enough green beans to keep her belly full all summer.
We call it scratching up taters. My goal every year is to be able to scratch up some taters for Mothers Day. It is my Mothers Day present to my wife. We both love them. My taters have done well this year , I scratched up enough for the whole family. I planted them the first week in March.
Sounds yummy!
Once we started getting rain about two weeks ago, my taters got happy. Counting hill & tops, the reds reach very nearly waist high. I probably won’t grabbel any until they bloom, about July 4th I think. I’ve hilled them up twice but have no room left to do any more than that. You make me hungry for some though. Randy, I think I posted this before but … Burkes Garden, VA got its name from a crop of potatoes that grew from peelings camp cook Burke left at a campsite the year before.
My mother used to dig out some new potatoes and put them in her green beans along with some leftover ham, if she had any, cornbread, fresh tomatoes, corn and green onions. She also cooked them up and put butter, salt and pepper on them. I make them that way too and boy are they good. Even my northern born hubby likes them.
What a meal. Sounds like my momma’s cooking. Thanks for the memories this Mother’s Day, day after. Almost brings tears of joy. God bless everyone today, tomorrow and always.
My potato vines are looking better than they ever have and I’m very hopeful. I saw that you grow yours in the big grow bags so I copied you this year! I’m nervous to try grabbling any for fear of messing up the growth. But I’ve got a country ham with green beans on the menu for tonight and I may just need to get in there and see what I can get. So good to hear that granny is feeling well enough to cook!
We are looking forward to our new potatoes this year as well, I planted ours on Good Friday and the plants look fantastic! We’ve also had 2 batches of wilted lettuce so far with more to come, my lettuce has done really well, I’ve pulled my spinach and we’re going to eat it tonight. This is the first year I’ve ever got spinach to grow well enough to have with a meal. I’ve also pulled radishes and their growing great so far. I also have onions, carrots, beets, peas, peanuts, kohlrabi and bok choy cabbage which has already started to bolt, so pulling that today. Today I plan on getting kale, pepper plants and eggplants in the garden before it starts to rain and before our youngest grand daughter comes over to spend the afternoon with me.
New potatoes and fresh green beans does sound like a tasty meal.
Sounds like a meal fit for a queen, which is Granny. Have a great week everyone.
I had never heard of the term ‘back eye’ for what I presume is the back stove-top burner. Is that right?
Angus, yes you are right. We call the burners eyes 🙂
We also call them eyes. I’ve said before so much of yours and Granny’s ways of cooking and speaking are exactly as ours in Arkansas. I’ve smiled so many times reading your blog thinking that’s exactly what my great grandmother would’ve said or done. Such sweet memories.
In the older days of my life when my grandparents had their coal/wood heaters, they had a small two round lid flat top stove in the room they referred to as their dining room. My family always called this stove a “two eye” stove and it is still common for the natives in my neck of the woods to call the burners on a cook stove “eyes.” Grandmother would often times cook her and granddaddy’s week day meals on this small stove.
We, too, called the burners on the stove “eyes.” I wonder how that term came to be used? Maybe it was because the old wood stoves allowed you to look at the fire inside giving you an eye on the fire. If anyone knows the derivation, please let us all in on it.
One of my all time favorite meals to eat in the late spring of each year was the small new taters, fresh green beans cooked with a leftover ham bone and cornbread. I could hurt myself by eating so much of this. We would often dig (grabber) under our arsh taters and especially sweet taters. This year I tried something I learned about on the BP&A, I planted some tater peelings, they did sprout and are one of few successful things I have planted this year. I do have some pretty tomato plants. I have had trouble with getting anything else to come up. These year the weather has either been warm and dry or wet and cold. I have talked to others that said they were having the same problem. In the past dry years I had trouble with ants getting into my potatoes, you couldn’t see them until I took the taters up.