And tater tots. Hey, I said I was trying to clear out the freezer!!.
Mike's post cracked me up because guess what I cooked last weekend? Tater Tots. It was an evening I call "Dinner and a Movie" wherein I choose a movie ahead of time and custom-design a meal we eat while watching. In this case, the film was a 1995 indie film called "Color of a Brisk and Leaping Day" about a young Chinese-American train freak who bought the Yosemite Valley Rail Road in the years immediately following WWII. Why Tater Tots? Because when I was a child, we vacationed in Yosemite every summer. One year, the people in the next cabin had to leave early and gifted us all their unopened food, one of which was a bag of Tater Tots. The four of us kids didn't even know Tater Tots existed prior to that day thanks to our Health Nazi mother, and of course we all fell immediately in love. Greasy? Salty? Questionable nourishment? Our favorite things! With the Tater Tots I served chuck blade steaks marinated in mustard and worcestershire sauce, another Yosemite food because sometimes that was the only cut available at the village market. Of course, Bob didn't have any of this to relate to, but Tater Tots must take him somewhere too because when he saw the generous pile I had poured onto the baking sheet, he shook his head and predicted, "Not enough Tots."
Turns out neither of us had had them in over 20 years with the exception of one morning last August, when Tater Tots was one of the offerings on the English side of the breakfast buffet on our boat on China's Yangtze River. It was at the point of the cruise where most of us believed we knew what was in each chafing dish and no longer looked for or expected anything new, so everybody kind of ignored this one dish, or the cooks made these belatedly to replace something they'd run out of, we weren't sure which, until some guy named Rick from Utah showed up at our table with a plate piled high with Tots. "Tater Tots! Tater Tots!", we all exclaimed and dashed back to the buffet. An audible ripple of excited chatter criss-crossed the dining room as word got out, "Tater Tots! Tater Tots!" Tables emptied and a huge queue formed behind that dish as people, most like me already done with breakfast, got back in line to indulge in this food that, practically speaking, any of us could have at home any time. It's just that most of us don't. And we were on vacation.
Any other fans?
I do like the little salty greasy things, and I think Bryan hit on a big part of their appeal. They're far easier and less messy than making your own french fries, quicker than roasted or baked, and they're better in terms of flavor and texture than any pre-made fries I've had. As potato-based convenience foods go, they're really not too bad.
I don't consider them a yuk, but I don't like the grainy texture of the obviously parboiled, grated knobs falling apart in my mouth. The salt and the crunch I like -- but I can get that hit in many more pleasurable combinations.