IT'S POLLTATO TIME: vote for your favourite way to consume potatoes

honestly I think I gotta go with croquettes if I have the choice! hashbrowns and gnocchi as runnerups.

Totally dependent on the quality of the product because the best two: roasties and chips - are also the worst two when they're shit

I do love a croquette partly because they seem especially difficult to fuck up

leek and potato soup/mash/roasted/chips are staples. Proper mash is mashed with a ricer and an contains unhealthy amounts of salt and also contain leeks sauteed in butter imo. I know some ppl might be snobby about air fryers or consider them a marketing gimmick. But let me tell you, my Cosori turboblaze is fucking great for making chips without a chip pan full of boiling oil. I occasionally do dauphinoise mainly to justify the existence of a mandolin cutter in my kitchen, but it is a fine side when done the right way.

more recently I like to roast a tray of cubed and hot spiced potatoes/onions/sweet potatoes/garlic and add them to whatever curry/chilli type dish I have made or am rewarming.

I'm on mashed potato duty for Christmas dinner at my ex's and I'm pretty sure the kids demanded it because I don't hold back on the salt & butter

hot spiced potatoes mmmmm Bombay aloo

Voted roasted but you forgot masterchef perennial fondant potatoes, could be my favourite if I'd had them enough to have a firm opinion.

when you heavily salt the water before boiling the potatoes for mash it really makes all the difference. Sometimes you just have to say bollox to Big anti-salt!

I find that potato waffles are waffley versatile

Freedom fries, fer sure

The first time I had fondant potatoes I was very disappointed because I assumed fondant meant soft and silky and apparently not

All of these are great. Good roasties are absolutely my champion potato, though. Worst is probably boiled just because they can be a bit dull, but honestly they're still pretty awesome when put with the right flavours.

Roasted

Caal otm about waffleversatility tho

Welsh Rarebit is so good as well.

kind of just cheesy mash on toast, but still a classic

Never heard of potato in a Welsh Rarebit but I love a fried potato sandwich so i can dig it

huh! everyone else in the world must be doing it wrong!

well anyway what I wrongly call Welsh Rarebit from my mum's version of it is a fucking improvement on the recipe

sadly missing jojo potatoes, which are thick wedges that are battered and fried. i think latkes may be my #1, but i think i could make a strong case for the best exemplars of 5-7 categories here

also potato pierogi might have earned my vote. and also vietnamese beef and fried potato, but crucially my preference is for the thin crispy chip-like version, not the version with big soggy chunks

https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5fee116050339566e9b38f09/1629051267254-UEPOX53C4E0BYAVMC3UO/vietnamese-beef-potatoes.JPG

but latkes with applesauce and sour cream? wow

huh! everyone else in the world must be doing it wrong!

I wasn't arguing I just learned a new thing

Stamppot, you rubes

I went with hash/home fries, a category that imo extends from Waffle House scattered, smothered and covered to Iberian patatas bravas.

I would have voted french fries except there can be so much variation between good and bad fries.

home fries

Actually looking at the list again, I see that Waffle House would fall under hashbrowns, also an excellent category. Still going with hash/home fries tho.

Also, pretty much all of these are good. Potatoes are good! It still boggles my mind sometimes to remember that the world outside the Americas never had potatoes or tomatoes until 500 years ago.

I often make what are called home fries in the US. Like parboiled, fried or roasted potatoes with herbs and spices. I just call them chips, but basically they are home fries.

Patatas a lo Pobre is a cool Spanish recipe that also is kind of home fries, but with lots of garlic, bell peppers and parsley.

fucking hell, potatoes are literally a godsend

According to our most conservative estimates, the introduction of the potato accounts for approximately one-quarter of the growth in Old
World population and urbanization between 1700 and 1900.

https://web.archive.org/web/20110705043431/http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/nunn/files/Potato_QJE.pdf

Write in for buttchugging

It still boggles my mind sometimes to remember that the world outside the Americas never had potatoes or tomatoes until 500 years ago

Hey there are so many punchlines but I'm lazy and I've had a couple

and also potato dependency accounts for the demographic catastrophe in the Republic of Ireland, but obv British Evil was the true villain (again)

The usual way we eat potatoes at home is tudousi

https://www.3thanwong.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/1f4d77_a300dcdfae864065b963593db895a627-mv2_d_3000_2250_s_2-scaled.jpg

Probably going to vote for the UK chips option. Am somewhat perturbed that wedges are tagged in with them as they seem as distinct from (UK) chips as French Fries are.

just big chips?

Voting for UK chips as in those served with cod, and xp yeah they are very much not the same as wedges.

colcannon

I do a version of that, and yes it is actually in the top 1% any other opinions can go fuck themsens

a good mash actually needs spring onion, cabbage or just being left a bit chunky imo else it lacks something, colcannon my fave solution

chunky spring onion >>>> chives

yep

my default mash is colcannon with leeks replacing the cabbage

voted UK chips, just don't overcrowd the fry basket plz

The usual way we eat potatoes at home is tudousi

I've been meaning to try this for ages. I'll make it a new year's resolution.

it's not hard, just start making hash browns then immediately stop

They aren't generally soggy, the British ones, or they shouldn't be. They are p similar to the Belgian ones but not twice or triple fried. If you've only had soggy you've had bad chips.

Hm. I just read a discussion on Reddit that defined "fries" as including (in order of least- to most-contentious): standard cut, steak cut (aka beefeater, twice fried), curly, natural cut (skin on), shoestring, waffle, sweet potato, crinkle, and tater tots.

I would personally distinguish sweet potato fries from "fries" because they're a completely different vegetable (and not even a true tuber). Waffle fries are differently-shaped enough to be their own thing-- I recall having "potato coins" at a certain point in my childhood and boy were they ever awful-- but I like waffle fries fine. Tater tots aren't fries. Crinkle cut are fries but they're probably the kind I like the least; I just googled to be sure that they are even made from "cut potatoes" (they are) instead of a potato slurry (like Pringle's chips), what a weird and strange version of a French fry are crinkle cut fries.

the crinkle cuts in shake shack are p good imo.

The subgenres of fries are important, in the same way that "metal" or "jazz" gives you some context but not the whole story.

idk what to say any more. I keep getting told I'm "eating at bad chippies" when I talk about UK chips being soggy. Like it's my fault. Like I'm using standard Yelp instead of "Yelp, Innit" when I research tonight's chippy tea. I say with authority and conviction: UK chips are issued with a higher frequency of "sogginess" than the fries that one typically can expect in USA, Canada, and much of Europe. I have had soggy fries all over the world, but no place more frequently than in UK. It has to do with the storage, I think: putting a fried fish or haggis on the chips tends to steam the fries and it makes them soggy. Nobody complains that "the fries were soggy" when talking about their favourite destinations for moules frites. Or French bistros. Casse-croutes in Quebec definitely tend toward soggy fries at times, but that's why you order the poutine, where the sogginess is less of an issue.

maybe because you're talking to people who grew up in the country and have eaten that shit about a billion times more often. seriously. being a tourist doesn't mean you know.

also if you haven't had soggy frites with moules-frites, prob one of the most slapdash dishes in existence even if it's amazing when done well, then that is a surprise.

obv the thinner the fry the crispier it is, down to the crispiest one on the plate being the fry that has no potato in it and has soaked up only oil, but that is not the nicest fry, and chipper chips are not supposed to be soggy.

no horse fat, gtfo

fgti, please tell me iyo are the chips in this photo "soggy" - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Fish_and_chips_blackpool.jpg

wow, the fish isn't on top of the chips there. unlike every other fish and chips ever made.

No, those "and chips" look delicious.

I resent having to make this assertion but please don't call me "a tourist", as I spent a quarter of my childhood/teen years growing up in UK, and have lived over-a-year of my adult life there on extended trips for work. My childhood was spent in Northumberland and Orkney, mind you, and it was the 80s/early 90s prior to "whatever happened in the 00s that caused UK restaurants on the whole to step up their game and it might've been because of Jamie Oliver", so yeah maybe "that bad haggis chips I had at age 12 in Stromness in 1992" is adding extra steam to my chip-memories but I'm not making these assertions like I haven't spent years of my life over there

k but you also don’t have to spend all this time soul searching and insisting that you are right about chips and everyone else is wrong. You don’t like them. It’s what it is.

I had awesome chips in Kirkwall, as a tourist

I can tell you that there are two chippies within walking distance of my house and they both sell like C-minus 5/10 chips, but they are only soggy if you leave them wrapped for 10 minutes before eating and I have learned either not to do that, or if unavoidable just put them in the air fryer for a couple of minutes when I get home.

whither boxty

There are lots of bad chippers, the hit rate isn't great relative to other fast food, the fries that are more consistent are most likely all frozen so it's a bit more repeatable.

xpost ulster

also if you haven't had soggy frites with moules-frites, prob one of the most slapdash dishes in existence even if it's amazing when done well, then that is a surprise.

Realllllly that's an interesting take. Moules Frites is so consistently spectacular in my experience that I order it less because it just kinda feels like cheating. Also because my fellow diners often are weirded out by the fact that I like to remove every mussel from every shell before eating rather than doing a shell-as-you-go.

I feel like it's done quite badly as a tourist trap thing in a lot of places. Finding it done brilliantly is p hard imo, unless you make it at home. It's not terrible just small mussels, average broth, okay chips kinda common enough. I've prob had better moules frites in Ireland by the sea than in Brussels or Paris.

Best moules frites I've had are at the Regency Cafe in Brighton, have tried and failed to get decent seafood at a number of other seaside towns around the UK, they keep bringing me breadboards covered in freezing cold assorted molluscs.

whither boxty

in a fucking hole where it belongs

sorry if this offends

The fact that the first two entries are the only varieties of fries available as voting options is fucked up. (In the US, "UK chips/chunky chips/wedges" are sometimes known as steak fries.)

Also, why no poutine option?

As fries go, my current ranking is waffle fries > curly fries > steak fries > skinny fast food style fries.

There's a taco chain in Montana (and other states), Taco John's, that sells disc-shaped tater tots as a side. Tacos + tater tots = amazing, and although I don't drink I could see it being one of the all-time great drunk dinners.

I've prob had better moules frites in Ireland by the sea than in Brussels or Paris.

Good tip, I'll order it next time I'm there

Tacos + tater tots = amazing

Hard agree

I like tater tots. Tbh there is not really any preparation anyone has mentioned that doesn't seem good.

I used to love those canned shoestring potatoes as a kid... but (like Hostess cakes) my mom only ever bought them when we went camping so maybe they're inextricably linked to summer and seem better in retrospect

https://i5.walmartimages.com/seo/coming-soon_466e5473-7172-48ae-8be5-e816089b73ae.11b85ac01f53c3407e186377449fc37e.jpeg

imo poutine isnt an option for the same reason many other suggestions aren't an option - the potatoes are fries, which is covered

adding stuff isnt the poll

otherwise this would be abrakebabra taco fries and it wouldnt be close

they are only soggy if you leave them wrapped for 10 minutes before eating

Lol this is UK chips done right imo... I want to be peeling chips from a smushed together mass.

xp or fully-loaded tater tots

Never had Poutine, Latkes or Colcannon so much to discover.

I went for Gnocchi but its actually 2nd to mashed.

Those Utz shoestring chips seem virtually identical to a Canadian potato incarnation which is considered "uniquely ours": Hickory Sticks. I don't love them but they're oddly addictive. I don't rate them as highly as certain uniquely Canadian chip flavours (especially dill pickle and all dressed).

I did eat Hedgehog chips at a point and really liked them

Never had Poutine, Latkes or Colcannon so much to discover.

Latkes, my god. This is my former boss with a tray of her famous latkes. Actual potato paradise

https://static.wixstatic.com/media/090a74_d05ded6e5db640cab4dd4e6377192c77~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_406,h_552,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/Judy%20with%20Latkes_edited.jpg

The eternal tourist potato has to be the single spiral potato on the long stick available at eg. Camden or Portobello. Bleurgh.

soaking some potatoes I sliced on the mandoline to fry and make some chips/“crisps” as we speak

When making the mayo style potato salad I tend to cut it half-half with plain yoghurt, especially when using store bought mayo. Although I’m struggling to remember the last time I didn’t make mayonnaise from scratch. Mainly because I always have eggs, olive oil, garlic and mustard in the house and never a jar of mayo.

srsly smashed are so good especially if you use them as a conduit for vinegar and sea salt

Write-in vote for the modern Brit-Chinese chippy fusion delight of salt'n'pepper chips.

I eat at/take out from a lot of SF Chinese restaurants. Salt and Pepper anything is great

- as in spare ribs, shrimp, calamari, etc

I’m in tots country (Pacific Northwest) and it’s tots-or-fries everywhere here, and I’m always happy with tots.

If I remember right from Montreal, Chicken McNuggets in French are McCroquettes.

(I love your username Eazy and I love that album)

(thank youuu!)

https://imgur.com/a/59gZFxd

they were delicious

bottom rack of poulet roti basted in au jus:

https://i.ibb.co/VWwrRZvj/image.png

Had my first business idea as a reault of this thread: A potato bakery chain that sold these varieties would be a hit

totally

"You Say Potato"

Spuds n Suds — potatoes and beer only.

As it happens Rhett & Link ranked potato concoctions today, I will document here as if any of you gaf:

S Tier - US Chips, Classic Fries

A Tier - Twice-Baked, Au Gratin, Waffle Fries

B Tier - Loaded Baked, Diner-Style Hashbrowns, Mashed With Gravy, Tater Tots, Curly Cut Fries

C Tier - Hashbrown Patties, Potato Salad, Crinkle Cut Fries

D Tier - Roasted, Steak Cut Fries

seems somewhat arbitrary but I don't understand their ranking system

“Putting roasted potatoes in D tier is the most egregiously malicious take I have ever witnessed.”