the.com/mashed potato
proof that smashing your problems until they're soft and buttery sometimes actually works
means A dish of boiled potatoes crushed and whipped with butter, milk, or cream into a soft, fluffy mass.
from From "mash," an old Germanic word for a soft pulpy mixture — the same "mash" used in brewing, where crushed grain steeps in hot water (related to Old English "masc," a mash for malting). "Potato" itself traveled a stranger road: it comes from the Spanish "patata," a blurring of the Taino word "batata" (the sweet potato) with the Quechua "papa" (the Andean tuber the Spanish actually carried back from Peru). So the humble side dish carries two crushings in its name: one of grain-language, one of two different New World plants mashed together by European tongues.
- earliest mention
- recipe printed in 1747 by Hannah Glasse
- the dance
- hit dance craze of the early 1960s
- riced texture
- forcing through holes beats mashing for fluffiness
- close talker
- Devils Tower sculpted from it in Close Encounters
- world record
- a mash mountain once topped 2,000 pounds
idaho russet mashed potatoes — idaho produces 30% of us potatoes, primarily russets used for mashing since the 1800s
shepherd's pie — british dish with ground meat base topped with mashed potato layer, originated in the midlands
colcannon — irish mashed potato and cabbage dish served traditionally on halloween since the 18th century