People of my generation think of them as comfort food. I think of my mom at Thanksgiving forcing me to peel the potatoes for our yearly dinner. It was worth it. I always begged for seconds of mashies. I never asked for more salad or turkey.
Taters are inexpensive. Everyone has access to potatoes, and with minimal work, they are easily changed into the wonder bowl of mashies. They can be doctored up to taste great, served with gravy or cheese or ...... the list goes on forever. Or they can be plain and simple even soothing a sickly tummy. While everyone has a preference for how they are served, hardly anyone can say they hate mashed potatoes.
They go with everything. You could eat them with pot roast or waffles and with any meal of the day. In a way, you could call them the world's most reliable food.
The down side is, that no matter how you dress them up, they are still a side dish. Most people don't just eat a plain bowl of mashed potatoes without something else. When presented with a large meal, mashies are often part of the waste because there are better things on the plate. This starchy delight is perceived to take up too much room. So when everything can't be eaten, the potatoes (no matter how tasty) are often set aside or scraped into a dog's dish.
The one time I actually saw mashed potatoes become the main attraction was in Close Encounters of the Third Kind when Roy Neary tries to build the Devil's Tower from his mashed potatoes. In the end, Neary fails to form taters into tower and opts instead for dirt and garden materials. Tasty side dish loses to dirt!
Sometimes my life seems like a bowl of mashed potatoes. A simple side dish that can show up in any situation. Reliable enough, but hardly regarded as an entree. Undervalued until, alas, there is nothing else available.
After pondering my sour cream loaded bowl, it occurs to me that the mashed tater people of the world are actually keeping it running. If everyone was a doctor, then we'd have no nurses or other medical professionals. If everyone was a lawyer, then we'd have no clerks or paralegals. In my case if all of us were veterinarians there would be no technicians in the trenches of animal medicine. If we were all leaders, then who would be led. (Could go on forever with this analogy.)
Being flexible, capable, reliable, and liked should be something that's valued. And we live in a world where it's often just not. I think that's a tragedy.
lw
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| Acknowledge some taters today!! |
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