Like most everyone else in Appalachia potatoes, or more commonly called taters, make up a large part of our diet at the Blind Pig house. It would be hard for me to say which way I like taters cooked the best.
Fried taters would be at the top of my list, but I’ve never been able to get mine to taste as good as Pap’s. I’m telling you he could flat make a pan of fried taters, they were even good cold. He said most people messed with the taters too much as they cooked, that’s probably what I’m guilty of doing when I fry taters. Pap said Bergan Moore made the best fried taters he ever tasted. He said Bergan only flipped them once.
I like a good baked potato. They’re the easiest way to fix potatoes and if you add enough toppings you can make an entire meal out of one.
I’m a french fry lover too, I think Granny makes the best homemade fries. She ought to be good at making them cause I know she’s served up a tremendous amount of french fries over the years for her family.
Easier than french fries are Granny’s oven potato chips. If I can’t think of anything else I want to eat, I make me some of them. You can go here to read more about Granny’s oven potato chips if you missed that post.
Mashed potatoes go best with meatloaf, roast, and deer meat. And I happen to like my own mashed potatoes more than anyone else’s so that’s a good thing.
Scalloped potatoes are good and so are cheesy potatoes.
As much as I love fried taters, right up there with them would be soupy taters. Granny Gazzie made the best soupy taters ever! Paul always said hers were shaped like little boats so that’s how I think of them too. Granny’s aren’t shaped like boats, but they are good and so are mine. Our soupy taters are really just stewed potatoes with a little butter and seasonings to taste but we’ve always called them soupy taters. Some folks add other things to their soupy taters like flour or onions or both. You can read more about soupy taters on this website. (Thank you for the link Gregory!)
I looked in my Dictionary of Smoky Mountain English to see if it had anything to say about soupy taters and found this interesting recipe:
tater noodling noun See 1997 citation.
1961 Seeman Arms of Mt 52 We’re havin’ ‘tater noodlins. 1997 Montgomery Coll. = balls of corn bread cooked in potato and ham broth (Andrews).
Dictionary of Smoky Mountain English
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I’ve never had tater noodlins, but now I want some, and I wonder if anyone in Andrews is still making them?
Tipper
My mother boiled potatoes with green beans and added some kind of pork. The liquid was thickened with flour I believe and I loved it. I ate the potatoes but often left the green beans. I like potatoes any way they are cooked. I can even like plain boiled potatoes with only salt and pepper, no butter or other seasoning. Potatoes are the best of foods. Loved this blog post, Tipper.
Tipper,
Just yesterday I fixed a pot of tater soup with onions and butter. I love taters anyway they’re fixed, but ain’t never had tater noodlins. After the taters cooled a bit, I took a cabbage cutter and chopped up the taters into little bits, crumbled several soda crackers and had 3 bowls of tater soup.
I got a lot of catching up to do. …Ken
Now that I’ve read your description of them, our paternal Granddad liked those potatoes. He didn’t care for mashed potatoes for some reason, so when Grandma made up some, she’d take some of the boiled potatoes out for him before she mashed the rest. She’d add butter, salt and pepper to those, toss them up in a pot to kind of break them down a bit, and that’s what he’d eat.
Our Dad liked those too, but I think he ate most any kind of potato. He was a fussy eater, but I don’t remember him being fussy about potatoes.
God bless.
RB
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Fried, baked, cream, sweet, it’s hard to ruin a tater. Never heard of tater noodlins, but I bet it’s good. When our Daughter is having a bad day and she needs to eat something, cream taters is always a good choice, she’ll eat them before she’ll eat anything.
I do love my pataters too! I always have said if I had to pick one food item to live on it would be patatees.I love them every way you said. When I do my baked potatoes I coat them in olive oil and pour course ground seasalt on them. I cook them in a small cast iron dutch oven. This really crisp up the peeling and I eat it as well. Soupy potatoes one of my favorites, especially with corn bread! I remember growing up going to various visits at homes that there was always a pot of soupy potaters and cornbread on the stove. Sometimes we heated up and sometimes we just ate it cold. Don’t forget sweet potaters! I fried some in butter and a little cinnamon just this week. This is making me hungry, think I will go find me some tateres for lunch!
Melinda Holloway Hadden.
Ain’t nobody mentioned fried taters, scrambled eggs and split biscuits smothered in a milk gravy made with pork sausage or bacon grease. If theys anything better than that I don’t know it!
FYI: For those who don’t speak the language, theys is a contraction for there is!
I love Taters pert near any way you can eat them, including raw with a little salt but one of my favorites is my wife’s tater cakes, Using left over mashes taters add a tad of milk,pepper, flour and chop up an onion, mix well then pat out and place into a little oil , Fry until brown on both sides, they go well with any entree.
I knew I wanted to comment on your potato blog as potatoes are my favorite food. Main course or side dish. Miss Cindy took my line, I should have gotten up earlier. I tell everyone “I’ve never met a potato I don’t like”! My doctor told me to stop eating potatos and the other ‘white stuff’ over 20 years ago but with potatos I can only do it for short periods of time. (The Paleo people are against them as well ) We had NEVER had grits until I was in my teens when the cheese-grits recipe came into popularity. My Irish Granny fried potatoes or made oatmeal with every breakfast. We basically had them three times a day. My first soupy-taters came later also, eating them first as teen in Maggie Valley. Of course, I liked them as well. I don’t like or eat rice so nothing satisfies my hunger as well as beautiful plate of potatoes. I just no longer tell Dr G .
I like to take small unpeeled new potatoes and simmer them in chicken broth until they are tender. I let them cool til I can handle them. I cut them in half and put them, cut side down, in a pan with some butter to fry. After a couple of minutes I take a spatula and press them down flat and fry them until brown. Then I flip them over and brown the other side. I add butter as needed to keep them from sticking or that’s the excuse anyway.
My mother used to boil new potatoes until almost done then mix up some of her drop biscuit recipe and drop it, half a teaspoon at a time into the pot. The biscuits would turn into little dumplings plus lose enough of the mixture into the liquid to thicken it. Add a little salt and a lot of black pepper and you have what we called “tater dumplins.”
Talking about taters. I grew up on them, every way talked about in the post. My son begs me to make fried potatoes for him in my iron skillet. Hamburgers and fried taters are his favorite meal. I have tried to teach him over and over to make them, but he says mine are the only ones that are any good. So, every few weeks, he comes over for them. He says he and his wife just can’t fix them as well. I think he is just complementing his mama. But we have a good time at supper when they come over anyway. It is so nice to have family around over taters.
I have eat taters everwhichaway you can thank of cept pickled and as a pie. I never seen or heared tell of pickled taters but wood be willin to try em if I fount some. I don’t know about the tater pie though after hearing the song from my school days.
♪♫ Tater pie, Tater pie!
Choked to death on a cold tater pie!
I thought to the Lord I would die!
Choked to death on a cold tater pie! ♫♪
Tipper,
Now you got me counting the days before the peas are ready in the garden. The first batch of new potatoes and peas in a cream sauce are the best.
my grandmother always added a little bit of milk to her “soupy taters” – thickened the broth some. Delicious. I remember eating raw potatoes with salt when I was younger (no accounting for taste, is there?)
I think we all love potatoes!! My husband prefers potatoes cut up and fried. I do make them but they never taste as good as my mother made. Hers were fabulously delicious! I remember my mother making those stewed potatoes but we mostly had the fried. Yum, Yum, good.
I like soupy taters but my favorite way to eat taters is fried up with fresh hot peppers.
I like soupy taters but my favorite way to eat taters is fried up with fresh hot peppers.
I like soupy taters but my favorite way to eat taters is fried up with fresh hot peppers.
I like soupy taters but my favorite way to eat taters is fried up with fresh hot peppers.
Tipper,
I have heard in my neck of the woods, call left over anything “noodlin’s”….”Well, we’re having noodlin’s for supper!” Meaning anything left over in the fridge put together for supper!
We love taters here as well…I love to make a meal of quartered taters, carrots, onion and cabbage chunks cooked in one pot. Start the hardest veggie first, that would usually be the carrots, cut in chunky pieces…add onion in a bit, then the taters cut in chunky quarters, last add the cabbage…some real butter and salt and pepper. When the taters are just tender it’s done…I make cornbread and add some sliced maters and spring onions if we are having this one pot in the summer…We take out the pieces we want, mash with a fork and add more butter or seasoning…
Best French fries are made in a large iron skillet…cut the potatoes even lengths if possible…iron skillet heats even and browns even.
Just last night we had left over meatloaf and fried cubed taters and onions…I have to fry them today in a mixture of olive oil and vegetable oil…s/p and in the last minute a very small bit of real butter for seasoning…. drain a bit on paper towels usually not much oil as I use it lightly no floating the taters in the oil mix…Cooking like this takes watching your onion and tater mix so they don’t burn or scorch….love fried onions and taters together.
My Dad loved soupy taters as did my Mom…a few pieces of streaked meat fried up when the higher meat was scarce…soupy taters and cornbread to sop it up with…also sliced onion or if in the spring or summer fresh green onions with salt piled on the side of the plate and sometimes kilt lettuce with it when we had fresh lettuce….All I usually ate was the potatoes dipped out and cornbread and a piece of onion…Ha
Love the post…Tipper,
Yep, have had soupy taters….don’t ever remember my folks calling them specifically “tater noodlins”.
That’s a new one on me! I’m sure I must have eaten soupy taters at some point in my life, but I don’t remember. Taters were ‘holed up’ after harvest and served with every supper. Ours were mostly fried and served with soup beans and cornbread. When I was a child, baked potatoes were only cooked in the hot ashes in the pot-belly stove. I occasionally bake a potato in the microwave to add to a quick meal. There is a world of difference in the taste.
You are a true tater lover & so am I. I could never pick out just one way–they are all so good. I have a friend who calls soupy taters “lumpy taters”. His wife didn’t know what he was asking for until he described them! We always called it stewed taters.
I make my mashed taters with condensed milk like Mama did and they are nearly famous around here. I’ve been having to make a dutch oven full for every holiday and they are all eaten.
If there are any leftovers from supper they are always my snack that night. I’m usually the last one up and I get a great kick out of having a big bowl of them in total privacy. Sometimes with an onion!
Yummy! Nothing like a perfectly baked potato with toppings or plain. I have never made soupy potatoes, but it is something I am tempted to try.
I like taters just about any way you can make them. I like to fry them up in the old cast iron skillet my mom used. There is no telling how many taters have been fried in that old skillet. I also make mashed taters that are pretty good. My secret is a dab of sour cream along with the butter. In cold weather we make tater soup which warms the soul on a cold day. I put a few drops of Frank’s hot sauce in mine to give it just a little bite.
Mom made stewed potatoes from time to time which could be the same as your soupy taters. She also made potato cakes from left over mashed potatoes that were wonderful. No matter what you call them or how you make them taters are just plain good eating.
Yep, growing up the three staples were beans (pinto and green), taters and cornbread. I like potatoes ever way I’ve ever had them except that store-bought shredded potatoes won’t brown up right. I like some crispy edges on fried potatoes. But I agree with you that certain matches are better than others.
I had same as forgotten about soupy taters. Mom made them but we didn’t have a particular name for them. They were just cooked potatoes. I have not had them in many years.
Yiu have mentioned two of the ways I like potatoes best, jpmemade chips and soupy taters. The likk is broken, but it is in my mind when they start making their own gravy and lots of butter yum
I’ve never met a tater that I didn’t like, they are a long time favorite food of mine!
I’ve never eaten tater noodlins, but I’d sure be willing to try them.
My friend, Larry, used to make the best ever baked potatoes. He sliced them thin, put them in a cast iron frying pan with lots of butter and baked them at a high temperature. In the baking process they stuck together and got crisp. When done they dumped out of the pan in one solid crunchy mass.
Oh, I do love potatoes. Guess now I’ll have to cook me a mess!