My father, a Chicagoan who was 2nd generation born in this country of Irish ancestry, had to have potatoes at every dinner. I grew up rarely ever eating rice or pasta. So yes, I do love potatoes, and usually "unadulterated" ones. I think it is a real shame what restaurants have done to the delicious potato skins I love. Here is the best way IMNSHO--wash an Idaho potato. Bake at 425ish for one hour till tender. Enjoy the baked potato with butter, sour cream, salt and pepper. Then cut the empty skin into large pieces, season with butter and salt and pepper and polish it off. YUMMY!

I love potatoes any way I can get them. I suspect it depends on your on heritage or what country or region of a country you come from that determines what the "real" version of something is. Where I come from, mashed potatoes always had milk or cream and butter.

I like potato skins if they're washed well and cooked crisp. Now let's talk about those culinary terrorists who wrap "baked" potatoes in foil! HEATHENS!! That's not baked, that's steamed, and approaching boiled.

I grew up in a riceless household too, with limited pasta. My dad was meat and potatoes. He didn't fight the Germans in WWII (and save us all! LOL) to eat rice and pasta! Nope, beef, pork and potatoes.

I hear ya,Cynic!!! And, I like my mashed taters with LUMPS...butter, salt and pepper!

Obviously you have never had the mashed potatoes with sour cream and cream cheese.

Definitely NOT a casserole.

casserole definition: a. A dish, usually of earthenware, glass, or cast iron, in which food is both baked and served.

I love mashed potatoes with a little butter, salt and pepper. My husband likes them pure as well.

But if there is any leftover sour cream from a mexican food night with no hope of being used before expirey I'll add it to the potato. If there's great gravy from a roast I often cave...if you have plain mashed potato they really suck up the sauce.

So put me on the middle of the fence on this one!

Cheers,
Peggy

A casserole also implies baking in the oven. Mashed potatoesw are boiled, not baked.

Yep, I agree, these are definitely not a casserole. Expand your horizons or not, they are still mashed taters.

We were pretty much a daily meat and potatoes family too (except for no meat on Fridays and nothing fussy for Saturdays) - mashed with a little splash of milk, salt, and a bit of butter. A lump every now and again came with the territory. We also liked gravy made with any pan drippings. I'm amazed none of us ever carried extra weight.

But I'm a universalist - I also like potatoes baked, potato skins, cottage fried, boiled, twice baked, french fried, scalloped, au gratined, potato chips, potato pancakes (latkes), perogies, potato salad, and hash browns although I do favor a good dollop of plain old mashed.

When I make mine its pretty much like Cynic's. Mashed (with a potato masher I got as a wedding gift, 56yrs ago) butter, salt & pepper and just enough hot milk to moisten them. I like my baked potatoes just with sour cream, no salt, pepper or butter.

I love mashed potatoes any and all ways. Have made them plain, with garlic, with cheese, cream or milk, butter or no butter. But to me, they taste best with a few spoons of chived cream cheese added. I hope the food police don't come get me. :o)

I always fix mine with milk, butter and salt. I may try the sour cream and cream cheese ones to see how I like them too. I do wonder, how they taste with the gravy or noodles on them? I like my mashed potatoes with something on top of them, like gravy, noodles, or dumplings. Son in law piled peas on top of his and asked where the corn was to put on top of that! To each his own I guess.

Sue

Cynic, not sure where you are from but our "mashed Potatoes" are certainly not a casserole and we add butter, milk, s&P and usually sour cream. Now those are some good mashed potatoes!!
I personally like whipped potatoes. Smooth and creamy...

"mashed potatoes with sour cream and cream cheese". Nope, separate dish. NOT mashed potatoes. It's adulterated, much like claiming tofu makes steak. And no, I haven't had that either and don't particularly care to partake. LOL

Arguing about what makes a "casserole" is silly. In my area we have hotdish in a casserole, some people actually eat a "casserole" which would be eating Corningware! LOL

My point which is becoming even more clear is people don't eat potatoes to taste potatoes, they want it to taste like something else.

Never met a potato I didn't love!

I'm with you Cynic. I love them mashed with butter and a splash of milk..... salt, pepper, and perfect!

When growing up we had potatoes almost every night, and is my comfort food when I'm sick or sad. My mom (Irish/German stock,) made mashed spuds with only the potato water and a tiny bit of margarine. Needless to say, when grown I discovered that whole milk and more than a tiny bit of butter made mashed potatoes even more delicious! When suffering a bad tummy, I eat potatoes, baked or boiled, with just a little salt and pepper--gives me a little energy when I can't eat much else.

I love potatoes plain, gussied up, sauced, creamed, whipped,mashed, fried, baked, boiled, saladed, au gratined, and in soups, stews.. anyway they can be cooked...I often will scrub a nice big baking potato, put olive oil all over the outside, and then bake it in a 450ú or hotter oven, and then just bust it open and eat it as is.. no salt, no pepper, no butter, no nuttin... and it is deeelish...

Potatos are to enjoy, no matter how you fix them... as for me, I love to play with food, so I probably don't make any particular recipe the same way twice... and that includes potatos..

Carolyn

"they want it to taste like something else." I agree cynic.
When I mash potatoes I normally drain the cooking water and save it.I add butter,salt and pepper and some of the cooking water and that's it.Sometimes I add a little milk but not always.I use the leftover cooking liquid for gravy if I'm making it.My aunt use to make the BEST mashed potatoes.She put a little bit of canned milk in them along with salt,pepper and butter.When I bake potatoes I scrub them real good,dry then off and coat with a little olive oil.Put them in a metal pan and bake at 425 degrees until they are soft.I rarely put anything on them but salt,pepper and butter. I love potatoes any way you cook them.I even like them raw,even though my grandmother told us not to eat them raw because we would get worms!LOL

I love potatoes, any way I can.
When I make mashed potatoes for a regular meal, it's always with butter and some milk.
Only on holidays do we get the mashed potato casserole with sour and cream cheese

Another way I make potatoes, is twice baked. Actually they really are individual potato casserole or hot dishes. I bake them, scoop out the white part, add sour cream dried onions cheddar cheese, bacon bits beat it all together, pile it back into the skins. When I make these, I usually make 6 or 10, two for that night and the others I set on a baking sheet, and put in the freezer. When they are frozen, I double wrap them in plastic wrap and put them in plastic bags. It is easy to take a couple out in the aft. noon. At supper time I just bake them for about 20 min.

Mashed potatoes are peeled ,boiled in water with a bit of salt added and drained. A little bit of evaporated milk and real butter are added. They are never whipped or beaten. They are mashed with a masher and a few lumps are fine. Those are my definition of mashed potatoes.
Not saying they can't become other potato dishes but if you telling me I'm eating mashed potatoes without another adjective in front of the word mashed, I don't want to taste anything else in there.

I really don't like whipped potatoes. (Baby food)

We eat lots of potatoes here too. Baked, mashed, boiled grilled anyway is fine with us. We love them...

When I make mashed potatoes, all I add is a little milk.

But then, I only eat mashed potatoes with gravy. When there is gravy, I don't need anything else.

If I eat butter and/or sour cream, salt, and pepper on potatoes, the potatoes are baked and NOT mashed.

What I don't like about many mashed potato dishes, is they get over cooked end up too watery,causing them to get gummy when you mash them. I either mash mine by hand or use a ricer. I do use some seasonings as well as a little milk or cream. Cynic is absolutly right about never covering a potatoe with foil. Bakers are supposed to be "dry" fluffy and foil steams them.
Here is a good site to find some other ideas for cooking potatoes.
http://www.idahopotato.com/recipes

I love my mashed potatoes with butter, salt and a little pepper. I grew up eating them that way. I started getting sick after I ate the mashed potatoes in Southern style restaurants. Finally realized they were adding milk or cream and my tummy didn't like it.

There's simply no wrong way to prepare potatoes in my book--I'm another who has never met a potato they didn't love. Well, I don't consider 'potato flakes' to be potatoes--I cannot eat fake mashed potatoes, and hate it when a restaurant assures you their potatoes are 'real' then serves you those horrid reconstituted flakes.

Growing up, mashed potatoes were always made with boiled potatoes, milk, butter, S & P and a bit of the cooking water. Everyone always raved about my dad's mashed potatoes and they were excellant. Only thing he did differently was to add that little bit of potato water.

I enjoy lumps in my mashed potatoes--one of the first holidays I spent at my in-laws, I took a bite of my mashed potatoes and said something like, "Oh, good, they have lumps in them"--my MIL was mortified, she thought I was criticizing. It took a lot of fast talking to convince her that I truly prefer them that way. I do like the current trend to serve smashed rather than whipped potatoes.

I am slowly getting back to eating white potatoes. I stopped eating them because somewhere for me potatoes lost their flavour. I like my mashed with salt, pepper, just a splash of milk and a pat of butter. No garlic, herbs or cheese for me.

My favourite potato is an over-baked cooked until the skin is crunchy potato. Just pepper and butter. Love boiled new potatoes with unsweetened applesauce on the side.

I do eat more sweet potatoes though than I do white potatoes. Baked in the oven until the sugars come out of the skin.

Anne

My friend , Thanksgiving, served them like my mother did, and I always do. Mashed, fluffy, in a beatiful presentation the way mashed potatoes are always served.

And with sour cream and cream cheese. Not like a baked casserole. There IS a difference.

My DIL make wonderful garlic mashed potatoes. No casserole, thank you!

Mashed is simply the method of preparation.

Just because someone adds this or that does not change the fact that they were mashed.

I served mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving.

I stood at that hot stove and mashed them myself with a potato masher. Then I added cream cheese, butter and whole cream, salt and pepper.

I put them in a bowl and served them. They were definatly not a casserole.

They were however declared "Delicious" by everyone in attendance.

I don't mind flavored mashed potatoes but I don't want to hear them called mashed potatoes and have my taste buds surprised.

Just call them garlic mashed,cheesy mashed or loaded or whatever.

Not mentioning the added flavors is like serving someone Raspberry Iced Tea (gag, spit, gag) when they've asked for Iced Tea.

I enjoy new flavors and fusion foods but I am also a food purist. I don't want to be told I'm getting a steak and then have it come under some stupid sauce that nobody bothered to mention.

I'm a potato junkie! I've always said if I had to be stranded on a deserted island just give me a potatoes..I could live forever on nuttin but potatoes!!

I agree with Wildchild. I like variety, loaded potatoes and the like too (a huge campfire baked potato covered with good chili is a treat), but no, mashed potatoes are a type of dish. And just because it's not in a dish rather than a bowl doesn't change the preparation method and style into something it's not. You can't call cheese filled potatoes mashed potatoes any more than calling hash brown casserole hash browns. They're not the same at all.

Liking other stuff in it and changing it is fine but why sit and lie about it? Say you don't like potatoes! Be honest! LOL It's no different than ordering a hamburger but substituting tofu for the meat and a lettuce leaf wrap instead of a bun and saying I love hamburgers. Not a burger and cheez-n-cream-n-whatever-else is not mashed potatoes to me.

I too grew up with gravy for mashed potatoes and still like them that way. The other "dishes" are combined with other things to replace gravy I suspect, or do you put gravy on them anyway? Or maybe the problem is people don't like gravy? It certainly isn't for lower fat or something! LOL

I've grown tired of the adulterated taters. The last week I've been feasting on simple baked potatoes with some butter and seasoning on them and sometimes little or no seasoning.

To me it's the same thing with other foods. I don't need honey or syrup on my ham. Save it for the pancakes thank you. I don't need cheese on cauliflower either. I don't need brown sugar on my carrots. Guess it's easier to see why people weigh in as they do! LOL

I'm off to cook a turkey breast. No sugar on it, no glazing, just some seasoning probably. Although I'm debating about doing one bacon-wrapped sometime.

But I'll take instants over the poorly prepared potatoes. I've had many that are pretty decent, just add some extra butter and salt to them and no lumps. Some places use leftover baked potatoes mixed in with the instants to simulate lumpy mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes aren't to be lumpy - then eat them baked, boiled or steamed for chunks of potato. They're good that way.

I do like potatoes a variety of ways, but they have to be properly prepared anyway. I don't like raw baked potatoes, lumpy mashed, mushy boiled or grease-soaked french fries! It's not hard to do them right.

Mashed potatoes are potatoes that are mashed with a potato masher.

"but no, mashed potatoes are a type of dish. And just because it's not in a dish rather than a bowl doesn't change the preparation method and style into something it's not. You can't call cheese filled potatoes mashed potatoes any more than calling hash brown casserole hash browns"

Mashing IS the preperation style. Just because you add some other ingredients does not undo the mashing. They might not be what you prefer, but it doesn't change the fact that the potatoes are indeed, mashed.

I love potatoes too. We eat a lot of sweet potatoes but I love a good baked Idaho. All my life I thought we had mashed potatoes because that's what we called it. Turns out they were/are whipped potatoes. Mother made them that way, so did I, and so does my daughter. We add hot milk and butter. Sometimes we make garlic potatoes. I'll have to try them mashed. I have an antique potato masher.

I like potatoes too. When I was growing up, like many, it was meat and potatoes, along with a vegetable, bread, and often home canned fruit for desert. But my mom wasn't a great cook, and more often then not the potatoes were boiled (not mashed) and we smashed them down with a fork on our plate and put butter on them. Edible, but certainly not my favorite. Leftover boiled potatoes were sliced in small bits (not big slices) and fried and served again. I liked them that way, especially (believe it or not) when served for breakfast with pancakes! We did also have mashed potatoes, scalloped potatoes, or baked potatoes occasionally. Mashed potatoes were almost always served at holiday meals, along with gravy.

I like potatoes fixed just about any way, with the exception of the boiled ones, which I can take or leave. I often make mashed potatoes with just a little of the potato water, but prefer adding skim milk (just because skim is what I have in the fridge), and a little margerine or butter. I do like them with other things added as well. I love hash browns, real oven baked potatoes (no foil), and cheesy scalloped potatoes. Campfire fried potatoes, maybe with some onion sliced up and fried with them, are another particular favorite.

Who'd have thought, a simple thing like a potato, could turn into such a great discussion thread!

Thanks for starting this one, cynic!

Love potatoes especially mashed with butter ,buttermilk S&P mmmmmm