Home Fries
Product review: home fries. “Home fries” is a rustic and quaint sounding name given to leftover potatoes that you fry in a pan and serve with your breakfast. The name was probably coined by the very first hipster in an attempt to convince everyone once again that yet another potato dish was somehow artisan. Potatoes that are cut up and deep fried are somehow “french fries”, and if you know any French people, I am sure they are really happy about that. “Potatoes Au Gratin” which actually is French, and the best they can do to make them classy is to slice them thin and put grated bread and cheese on them. Hmmm, isn’t adding bread and cheese is just another staple of American cuisine? “Scalloped potatoes”, which is a grandiose way of describing how you slice the potatoes before again covering them in cheese and sauce. This might sound the same as au gratin, but the French are quick to point out that they are not the same at all and the French way is superior, as French people are wont to do.
Even a baked potato is considered somehow the classier way of having your potato prepared in a restaurant. It’s a fucking potato that’s simply left in an oven for an hour. Somehow, though, that makes it more high class than mashed potatoes or french fries. In fact, mashed potatoes are generally used to denote people in the working class, or as the wealthy refer to them, “ewww”.
I remember once when I was 14, my family went to a restaurant that was considered a little upscale, although trust me, it was only considered upscale relative to the rest of the eating establishments in the area. Quakertown, PA is not known as a culinary epicenter. In fact, at the time it was in the Guiness Book Of World Records for the most fast food establishments on a one mile section of road. I’m not sure if that was even true, but there were a lot of them, and a lot of the people from Quakertown would brag about it all the time, so it might as well have been the truth.
Anyway, we were ordering our food, and I ordered deep fried scallops. The waiter asked if I wanted a baked potato or french fries, and of course I said french fries. He was middle aged, and very proper, and in my memory, French, although that just might be selective and not true at all. He rolled his eyes, and said “I feared that”, in what may or may have been an exaggerated French accent, and my family laughed.
So first off, go fuck yourself, snotty, judgemental waiter mocking a 14 year old kid in your shitty excuse of a restaurant. I didn’t need Mr. Belvedere making me feel any worse about myself at that age. Also, fuck my family for laughing along. So maybe they got baked potatoes, and were somehow better than me, so what? “French fries” sounds much classier than “baked potato” anyway, so really, who’s the boorish one at the table?
But that’s my point. Eating potatoes apparently brings shame on anyone who does it, why else would we try so hard to class them up with bullshit names? Peas are peas, broccoli is broccoli, but potatoes are somehow so much more. God forbid you should eat tater tots. You better be a kid or at a buffet in a strip club if you are going to eat them. Potato chips are junk food, but know you can get “veggie chips”, like they are somehow healthier for you. They don’t even have to specify which “veggies”, just as long as you know that they aren’t potatoes. Don’t even get me started on sweet potatoes. Meanwhile, most people hate vegetables, and potatoes are considered “comfort food”, so who’s fooling who here? Fuck everyone and their potato bias.
Of course, I am aware of the fact that potatoes are single handedly bringing down the human race. The problem is that we can’t keep ourselves from frying them, so we are essentially having starch and fat make up a large percentage of our diet. Thanks to hash browns, fries and chips, we can have every meal of the day involve fried potatoes of some sort. Even the “healthy” version of potatoes isn’t all that healthy. Baked potatoes often come loaded with butter, sour cream and bacon, as do mashed. Yeah, you could eat baked or boiled potatoes plain, but who are we, poor Irish people? No, even Irish people risked everything to arrive in America to escape plain, boring potatoes.
What is the answer to the scourge of potatoes, fancy and artisan, or cheap and lowbrow, and how they wreak havoc on our health and class system? How the hell should I know? I’m just here to mock and ridicule one version of them, for no good reason.
When I was young, my mother would sometimes make home fries for breakfast on the weekend. She would have leftover potatoes, and fry them with onions in a cast iron skillet, which to me is the way they should be made. This is probably close to the way any of you make them at home, which might be why they sound rustic and quaint. Anything cooked in cast iron is artisanal. But really, who has time for that anymore?
No, the version of home fries we most come in contact with are at the diner, and look nothing like the home fries in the photo I used. I know that you can buy a bag of frozen home fries at the supermarket, but if you do that and you’re not a harried mother of multiple children, you can just go fuck yourself. You’re probably the same type of person who buys frozen french toast(another fancy sounding name for stale bread dipped in egg and fried. Why do people think putting the word “french” in front of something makes it fancy?).
Diner home fries almost always come in two varieties: burnt or raw. Usually at the same time. In fact, they often look like scalloped potatoes that the cook just threw on the griddle and put no thought into after that. My theory is that they start out with a big pile of them, and take what’s needed every time someone orders them with breakfast. If you order your eggs just as the pile went on the griddle, you get raw home fries. You order fifteen minutes later, you get burnt home fries. Everything else in the middle of that time span gets something on a sliding scale from uncooked to cinders. Then rinse, lather, repeat.
Hash browns are sometimes the same thing. If they have the deep fried patty version of hash browns, what you get is pretty consistent, but a lot of diners have what is basically home fries. The main difference is that the potatoes are cut into thin strips before being cooked, and served to you burnt or raw. In fact, the potatoes in hash browns are julienne cut, yet another fancy name applied to the way you slice potatoes.
I think the solution to this whole issue is to just order french fries with your breakfast. In what circumstance are french fries not the best choice, unless of course you’re not looking to kill yourself slowly, but who isn’t looking for that? I mean really, home fries are the shittier version of french fries anyway, why pay for something inferior when you can just have the real thing? Also, if you really want the frozen patty version of hash browns, get tater tots. That’s a bonus life hack to make your life easier.
And if the thought of substituting french fries for your precious and snobby home fries offends you, why don’t you just go find that (possibly) French waiter from my childhood and shove whatever version of potatoes you think makes you better than me up your asses and see if you can tell the difference.
Wow, I really need to calm down about potatoes. I think I might need to talk to someone.
Even a baked potato is considered somehow the classier way of having your potato prepared in a restaurant. It’s a fucking potato that’s simply left in an oven for an hour. Somehow, though, that makes it more high class than mashed potatoes or french fries. In fact, mashed potatoes are generally used to denote people in the working class, or as the wealthy refer to them, “ewww”.
I remember once when I was 14, my family went to a restaurant that was considered a little upscale, although trust me, it was only considered upscale relative to the rest of the eating establishments in the area. Quakertown, PA is not known as a culinary epicenter. In fact, at the time it was in the Guiness Book Of World Records for the most fast food establishments on a one mile section of road. I’m not sure if that was even true, but there were a lot of them, and a lot of the people from Quakertown would brag about it all the time, so it might as well have been the truth.
Anyway, we were ordering our food, and I ordered deep fried scallops. The waiter asked if I wanted a baked potato or french fries, and of course I said french fries. He was middle aged, and very proper, and in my memory, French, although that just might be selective and not true at all. He rolled his eyes, and said “I feared that”, in what may or may have been an exaggerated French accent, and my family laughed.
So first off, go fuck yourself, snotty, judgemental waiter mocking a 14 year old kid in your shitty excuse of a restaurant. I didn’t need Mr. Belvedere making me feel any worse about myself at that age. Also, fuck my family for laughing along. So maybe they got baked potatoes, and were somehow better than me, so what? “French fries” sounds much classier than “baked potato” anyway, so really, who’s the boorish one at the table?
But that’s my point. Eating potatoes apparently brings shame on anyone who does it, why else would we try so hard to class them up with bullshit names? Peas are peas, broccoli is broccoli, but potatoes are somehow so much more. God forbid you should eat tater tots. You better be a kid or at a buffet in a strip club if you are going to eat them. Potato chips are junk food, but know you can get “veggie chips”, like they are somehow healthier for you. They don’t even have to specify which “veggies”, just as long as you know that they aren’t potatoes. Don’t even get me started on sweet potatoes. Meanwhile, most people hate vegetables, and potatoes are considered “comfort food”, so who’s fooling who here? Fuck everyone and their potato bias.
Of course, I am aware of the fact that potatoes are single handedly bringing down the human race. The problem is that we can’t keep ourselves from frying them, so we are essentially having starch and fat make up a large percentage of our diet. Thanks to hash browns, fries and chips, we can have every meal of the day involve fried potatoes of some sort. Even the “healthy” version of potatoes isn’t all that healthy. Baked potatoes often come loaded with butter, sour cream and bacon, as do mashed. Yeah, you could eat baked or boiled potatoes plain, but who are we, poor Irish people? No, even Irish people risked everything to arrive in America to escape plain, boring potatoes.
What is the answer to the scourge of potatoes, fancy and artisan, or cheap and lowbrow, and how they wreak havoc on our health and class system? How the hell should I know? I’m just here to mock and ridicule one version of them, for no good reason.
When I was young, my mother would sometimes make home fries for breakfast on the weekend. She would have leftover potatoes, and fry them with onions in a cast iron skillet, which to me is the way they should be made. This is probably close to the way any of you make them at home, which might be why they sound rustic and quaint. Anything cooked in cast iron is artisanal. But really, who has time for that anymore?
No, the version of home fries we most come in contact with are at the diner, and look nothing like the home fries in the photo I used. I know that you can buy a bag of frozen home fries at the supermarket, but if you do that and you’re not a harried mother of multiple children, you can just go fuck yourself. You’re probably the same type of person who buys frozen french toast(another fancy sounding name for stale bread dipped in egg and fried. Why do people think putting the word “french” in front of something makes it fancy?).
Diner home fries almost always come in two varieties: burnt or raw. Usually at the same time. In fact, they often look like scalloped potatoes that the cook just threw on the griddle and put no thought into after that. My theory is that they start out with a big pile of them, and take what’s needed every time someone orders them with breakfast. If you order your eggs just as the pile went on the griddle, you get raw home fries. You order fifteen minutes later, you get burnt home fries. Everything else in the middle of that time span gets something on a sliding scale from uncooked to cinders. Then rinse, lather, repeat.
Hash browns are sometimes the same thing. If they have the deep fried patty version of hash browns, what you get is pretty consistent, but a lot of diners have what is basically home fries. The main difference is that the potatoes are cut into thin strips before being cooked, and served to you burnt or raw. In fact, the potatoes in hash browns are julienne cut, yet another fancy name applied to the way you slice potatoes.
I think the solution to this whole issue is to just order french fries with your breakfast. In what circumstance are french fries not the best choice, unless of course you’re not looking to kill yourself slowly, but who isn’t looking for that? I mean really, home fries are the shittier version of french fries anyway, why pay for something inferior when you can just have the real thing? Also, if you really want the frozen patty version of hash browns, get tater tots. That’s a bonus life hack to make your life easier.
And if the thought of substituting french fries for your precious and snobby home fries offends you, why don’t you just go find that (possibly) French waiter from my childhood and shove whatever version of potatoes you think makes you better than me up your asses and see if you can tell the difference.
Wow, I really need to calm down about potatoes. I think I might need to talk to someone.
Coming soon: Product review: psychologists!
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