Mashed Potatoes are Love!

Every person, every region, and every culture has a touchstone of comfort foods. I know those who find juvenile joy in baked and bubbling macaroni and cheese, slow-simmered black beans, intense chocolate babka, or just a simple warming bowl of wonton soup. I suppose, psychologically speaking, it really all depends on what someone who cared about you, gave you, to cheer you up when you were feeling glum at some point in your youth. I have a friend who makes their own strawberry ice cream. Even on the bleakest of winter days, it wraps her in a warming down-filled blanket of bliss. 

For me, it’s mashed potatoes that calms the savage beast of reality. Growing up, I don’t think we had them often, but they did appear on somewhat special occasions. At my grandmother’s dining table they were passed around at supper (our midday meal) heaped majestically in an ironstone bowl, wisps of steam rising, with little pools of melting butter. I can smell it right now. It was the fragrance, followed by the taste, of love. 

In my twenties, I became a very successful starving artist in Manhattan. After paying rent and buying paint, I had very little left. That is when I started to learn how to cook and appreciate food not just as sustenance, but as an expression of self, of hope, and of cultural position and values. I made mashed potatoes often, and when I was just about to put the first ethereal spoonful to my mouth, I would say out loud, “Mashed potatoes are love.” close my eyes and enjoy the momentary flavor of my midwestern youth.  

Over the years I have developed this recipe which elevates the humble spud to one of total epicurean decadence. I only prepare them a few times a year, but when I do, I wallow in their nurturing nostalgia. They will be making an appearance on my dining table very soon!

Get the recipe here!