The Deer Hunter frying taters with ramps
If you ask me fried taters is one of the finer things in life. Pap made the best fried taters! After he retired I’d stop by after work to see him and Granny and I’d always make a bee line for the stove to see if there was any left over fried taters.
In the days before I worked away from home sometimes Granny would call me and say “You ought to come down and eat dinner. Your daddy made fried taters and I made some biscuits and opened a jar of fruit.” Now that was some good eating!
Pap crafted his tater frying. He sliced his in circles and cooked them slow until they were brown and crispy around the edges. He told me one time the best fired taters he ever ate were made by Bergen Moore. Bergen was a deacon at our church and was always in charge of the tater frying when the men and boys went on camping trips. Pap said Bergen’s secret was to only turn them once. I could never ever manage that.
Papaw Tony makes really good fired taters too and everybody knows it. One time a friend of The Deer Hunter’s practically ate the entire pan of fried taters Papaw made and no one else got hardly any to eat. That friend still talks about Papaw’s fried taters.
Lucky for me, The Deer Hunter makes really good fried taters. He has the patience to make sure they get done on the inside and also have those wonderful brown crunchy edges on the outside. He dices his taters before cooking and his favorite way to fry them is to add chopped up ramps to them just before they finish cooking. I love them that way too, but really, I’m never going to turn down any sort of fried taters 🙂
Last night’s video: A Traditional Appalachian Meal and How to Make Soup Beans and Kilt Lettuce.
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Love fried taters with onion. I add a little water and cover them for a little while. The crispier the better. So yummy.
Potatoes tasted so much better when I was a kid. Today other than red potatoes almost all I can find are Russets or Idaho’s. They’re good but not the same for frying.
My grandpa Shuman always grew Kennebec’s and my dad liked Irish Cobblers. They both made the best fried potatoes.
Mom made wonderful fried potatoes 2 different ways.
One was was to peel and slice into rounds and fried in bacon grease or lard and season with salt and pepper. They were always tender inside but golden and crispy outside. Boy they tasted good with beans.
The other way mom fried her potatoes was to peel and quarter her potatoes and par-boil them in salted water until just barely cooked through. Then she would drain them well and while they were still hot drop the quartered potatoes in a big skillet with hot bacon grease and fry turning a couple of times to brown the potatoes on all sides. These potatoes were especially delicious.
My mom uses small red potatoes and slices them thin and fries with onion. You have to be so patient if you want them to get brown and not stick. I am not patient enough!
I like the Deer Hunter’s gas burner rig. Like a permanent camp stove. I could get used to cooking on one of those.
I too love fried potatoes and I dice mine as well and cook with onions as we don’t have ramps down here in Foley Alabama. My maternal grandmother, the wife of a Methodist preacher, fixed pinto beans at least once a week. Never heard them called soup beans until here recently but they are still good old pintos. Loved the video and you live a beautiful life. God bless you.
Best meal ever, fried taters, red beans (pintos), macaroni with diced tomatoes poured over and a pan of cornbread. My hubby likes fried boloney with it
how do you make fried potatoes ?
d-you need potatoes, some type of oil, and your favorite seasoning. Everyone has their own way of frying potatoes, but I think covering them during part of the cooking time allows for them to get done all the way through but still have the crunchy outside 🙂
I never met a tater I didn’t like, but my favorite is fried! 🙂 If it hadn’t been for soup beans, fried taters, and corn bread we would’ve went hungry a many a time growing up. My favorite is biscuits, gravy, fried taters, bacon, and a big ole slice of mater fresh from the garden. There ain’t no better eating than that! 🙂
My mom made great fried potatoes too. Round and flipped once of course served with soup beans and cornbread. These comments are so sweet. Mom lived to 91, and fried potatoes was the last food she ask me to make for her. Thanks to all you good folks for reminding me of our good eats!
My mom made fried potatoes all the time. We didn’t have a lot of fancy food but those fried potatoes were heavenly to me! I still make them all winter long and my husband doesn’t like them. I don’t understand but he wasn’t raised right!
Nothing in the world any better than fried taters!! We love them fried with onions also. Enjoyed watching the video last night and the food looked wonderful! What was so special is how the Deer Hunter helped you in the kitchen. That’s a good man and I am blessed to have a good one too. Thanks, Tipper!
I love fried taters!! I would have stared to death growing up if it was not for fried taters, soup beans and cake bread and cornbread. When I was little I dreamed of eating fancy foods but now that I am older lol I still eat that old timey mountain food. I love fried taters and greens mustard spinach etc… good eating!!! God Bless!
When I lived in Aiken, SC we would have a company fish fry. One of the men would cook river biscuits. The round potato slices were battered with cornmeal just like the fish. He dropped them in the hot oil and when they floated to the top they were done. I haven’t had them in forty years but I can still remember how good they were.
I cheat when I fry potatoes. I use baked or boiled potatoes and then cook in a small amount of grease. I usually put onions in and make them like hash browns. The crispier the better. The wife won’t eat them so I cook the way I want to. Of course when we go out she steals fries off my plate.
Different subject: Do people in your area eat boiled peanuts? The history of peanuts is rather fascinating and now I want to look up potato’s history.
Harry-boiled peanuts are popular here and I just love them 🙂
A friend from mid state North Carolina had never had them until living in Aiken. SC and he loves them. Most northerners despise them except for my son-in-law and his young daughters. I found they are eaten in southern China as well. The peanut history as most veggies is amazing.
Your supper was like sitting down to my Mother’s table and eating the best food ever. Our oldest son fixes his plate of beans, black-eyed peas, or pinto just like you and Matt. He breaks up the cornbread, pours on the beans, and sprinkles a lot of cubed sweet onions he cut up, on the top. I’m different, as I like to put my slice of cornbread separate on the plate from my beans and then a big slice of Vidalia onion, plus pickled beets, or squash. I think those wonderful onions are grown in southern Georgia. They are my favorite. I absolutely love that type of supper!! Mother could fry up the most delicious taters like Matt. I try but they never seem to be as good as Mothers and I’m thinking I need to have more patience like Matt.
Oh yes Miss Tipper, I could eat fried taters with any and everyone meal, Breakfast, Lunch & Supper!!!! I guess that’s why we’ve got SO MANY of them planted here on the homestead lol We’ve gotten the majority of all our gardens planted, but we desperately need a good rain to give everything a good GODLY boost. Thanks for sharing this post about them good ole fried taters!!!! ☀️❤️
Love fried potatoes from a cast iron skillet. Nothing like it
I told a group of people how my family ate beans, fried taters, and cornbread for supper every day. A man in the crowd said what’s wrong with that?! The only way I ever remember mom frying taters was in circles.
I have had fried taters and ramps, but I didn’t gather any this year. I also have had fried taters and onions, but my favorite way is to fry them with hot peppers. I use to grow hot banana peppers and fry them stuffed with cheese and flour battered. They were really good, but you shore need to have some whole milk close by. Come to think of it when I was a boy the only hot peppers I remember people growing in the country was the little red ones.
I went back to yesterday’s video and read the comments and really appreciate all the prayers. It made me feel good.
Our family never ate fried spuds for breakfast…”not that there’s anything wrong with that,” as Seinfeld would say. We had eggs, grits and gravy. We ate taters by the ton with all other meals. Mom was feeding a husband and three sons. Fried, baked, stuffed, mashed (“creamed”), diced up for soups, we had all of those and some baked in hot ashes in the fireplace. Yummy!
My mama used to make these the same way your Pap did! She added chopped onions, salt and pepper. She always told me “turn them only once and fold them, not stir” .
I still have not perfected it, just not patient enough! Need to make them soon!
I guess crispy fried taters are my favorite food. I could eat my fill if allowed. My late husband made the best ones. His method was to slice them thin and deep fry. He kept a cast iron pot of oil on the stove. Just as they started to brown he added sliced onions. After they were crispy done he drained them on paper towels and sprinkled with salt and pepper. A couple years ago he perfected making French fries from potatoes he grew to freeze. Contrary to my Home Ec instructions he put the frozen fries in the deep pot of cold vegetable oil, turned the eye on high and in just a short time they were crisp and ready to eat with or without the onions. It’s nice to have husbands who can cook. Like Matt he could cook venison many ways that were delicious, too but his taters and onions were my favorite.
Properly cooked fried potatoes are a treat like non-other. I can’t do it. Most of the time I’m sorry but then sometimes I dig deeper to find a good reason I fail at making them – I would weight 300 lbs. if I could make them really well. I had a friend that spent her life trying to always find some good in whatever person or topic was being discussed – remarkable. She was once asked to say one nice thing about the devil – she piped up quickly with “he sure is persistent”! She was a blessing to know.
Mary, you made me smile. I heard a story about a lady like your friend. When asked the same question, she said, “I hear he’s a good whistler.”
I could eat fried taters all day, every day. One of my favorites that my grandma made… fried taters and eggs. I recently introduced this to my four little boys and they gobbled up the whole pan!
Oh some folks are “taken in” by fancy food like snails dipped in chocolate —- or worse even!!! I’d rather have fried taters than any thing else on this earth so you are in excellent gastro company here, Tipper! My secret is not drowning them in grease. (Feel free to add a little water.) They must be golden edged, salty, peppery and oniony too. The reason (I read in a cookbook) to make your tater slices ROUND is even frying. But I’m a shoe string style tater cutter personally. Through the years my taters have only gotten tastier and more delightful with experience. If you got no fried taters, what on earth do you have worth eating???I had an aunt who went to visit her granny at 3. She asked if Great Granny had several things to eat which Great Granny replies no. My aunt replied (to my grandma’s shock and utter dismay) “ Well, you just don’t have a damn thing, do ya?” I feel the same about fried taters… lol
I can’t even imagine life without good fried potatoes. It must be the Irish in me.
Those fried taters on last night’s video looked oh so good, made my mouth water. I love fried taters!
Y’all make me hungry. Whatever they are called, those crispy-edged tater rounds are my all-time favorite. To me, they leave French fries in the shade. That’s the way my Mom fried’em but it must be a well kept secret for they sure are hard to come by. I would not have guessed the low heat that JC mentions. I would have guessed high like I do to get crispy-edged fried eggs.
I picked about 2 cups of Wando early peas yesterday Tipper. They were so good. Every time I have fresh green peas I wonder why I bother with store-bought. There is no comparison.
Today we are getting rain! First good rain in 18 days. Like Johnny Jett of “Barnwood Builders”, I say, “Thank you Lord.”
Ron-I’m thankful for the rain this morning too 🙂
It’s raining here too. If it don’t fail me it will be the first appreciable rain since the first of April. There have been thunderstorms go all around me but I got only enough rain to turn the pollen into green mud.
I love JC’s quote from an aunt: “As long has you have a tater, you have a banquet.” I’d sure like to figure our a way to work that into our cookbook if it’s all right with him (or her?).
I’m tellin you that dinner looked really good! I love it when y’all cook outside, something about cooking outside just makes you hungrier. My husband watched with me and was I interested in the kilt lettuce he wants me to do it I think I’ll give it a try. I’d like to know how you do your squash relish, is there a video on that? Have a good week!
Tammye-thank you! I misspoke when I said relish they are pickles and you can see the recipe here: https://blindpigandtheacorn.com/easy-recipe-for-squash-and-or-zucchini-pickles/ They are really good!
Fried potatoes and onions – that’s my ultimate breakfast! I have never managed to learn how to cook them raw without destroying them. But if I use leftover boiled potatoes, my fried potatoes turn out perfectly – crispy (and not burned!) on the outside, yummy on the inside. I love mine with ketchup on them. A breakfast of eggs cooked anyway with Tabasco sauce on them, sausage or bacon, fried potatoes and onions with ketchup, and some fruit – is my favorite breakfast! I enjoyed this post. Thank you!
Donna. : )
Frying taters in Appalachia is a right of passage for most young girls. In fact, it is the first cooking achievement accomplished by many. I can still recall eating some of their half done fried potatoes with nary a complaint form anyone. My first roast was accompanied by potatoes that were so hard that when you tried to pick them up they would go sliding right across your plate. Everybody has their own way. Mom always cut them in small blocks which she cooked and browned to perfection. I always cooked that way until I found my significant other had grown up eating them cut into round circles. From then on I cooked them that way. My aunts and uncles fondest memories were remembering how their mom fried taters. Most of our breakfasts consists of fried spuds and cream gravy. To this day I can throw that together in no at’all. I like the Deer Hunter’s outdoor set up.
During the blog I watched yesterday you mentioned different ways to eat beans. My Mother-in-Law used to make the large lima beans, with side meat of course, and would also make a white or vanilla care. The 4 layers were thin and homemade chocolate icing. Her favorite way of eating the lima beans was to pour a healthy spoon of the cooked beans over a slice of the iced cake. I know, strange, and the first time was truly surprised by the taste of that combination. She has since passed and when I tell anyone, I do get the strangest look. The potatoes that the Deer Hunter made did look good…..God Bless
I grew up eating a banana with a slice of cheddar cheese -delish! Sounds weird to some, but thats how my maternal grandfather ate it. Also baked bean sandwiches. He died when I was 11 so I don’t have too much memory of him (plus he had 10 kids & gads of grandkids & my grandma died before I was born, so we didn’t spend a lot of quality time w/him). My husband loves cranberry relish with black olives together. grosses us out. Wonder why some things tastes good to some, even tho it seems like a strange combo?
Fried potato’s are a favorite of mine. My Mom used to make a ton of them and serve us fried potato sandwiches. There were usually 6-8 kids around the table waiting for the next batch. There is a local cafe nearby that will make them for us. At the cafe they are called pan fries. Of course these days because of high cholesterol and such we are not eating fried food hardly at all. If I did want something fried, this would be my choice.
Yes, indeed, the Deer Hunter makes fine fried potatoes. I know that part of his art is a well-seasoned cast iron skillet and patients. You just can’t rush perfection!
Oh yes fried taters are the best. You can eat everyday and they can be made a different way
My great aunt use to say “As long as you have a tater, you have a banquet.” She taught me and my mom how to make pan fry potatoes. She told us all you have to do is to turn them once. She would cook them on low and let them crisp up then take the whole mess and flip them over. Bacon grease was her fat for cooking them. Salt, pepper and onions or ramps added last. AMEN!