Thursday 16 November 2006

Pic of the day: This is a frighteningly accurate description, and unlike the food depicted, mine was not even in bright colors.

Chemically mashed potatoes

It is already years ago that I saw a comical ad for a Norwegian product, mashed potatoes powder from Mills. I am not sure whether people in other countries eat mashed potatoes at all... they probably do in the other Scandinavian countries, perhaps Ireland? And Idaho for sure, since people there are even eat potato ice cream! (Or so I have read...) Anyway, this advertisement said: "Life is too short to peel potatoes." And I thought to myself: Shall we then peel potatoes in eternity?

Despite this, as I grew older and I got more money and less time, I too succumbed to the mashed potato powder. It is so easy to use: Just boil three deciliters of water, turn off the heat, add two deciliters of milk, then add the powder and stir thoroughly. Allow a couple of minutes for the mashed potatoes to swell and get the right consistency. It is one of the fastest ways to get a meal that has a vague resemblance to dinner. While I don't eat warm food every day, it is a nice change. While rather bland on its own, potato mash is good with something salty. (Of course, I often take the time to make my favorite homemade meal as well: Cooked pasta fried with browned potato salad, with herbs and cheese.)

For those who want a bit more than just the taste of potatoes (which is very bland, especially in this industrial product), there is also a version with chives. It probably contains some other taste-enhancers too, because it certainly tastes more meal-like than the basic (and cheaper) version. And just in case you don't have milk in the house one day, there is even a version with milk. Just add water. Or that's what they say.

I tried it today, and it tasted like industrial waste. OK, so I don't actually know the taste of industrial waste, but it certainly tasted industrial and it was wasted too, because I had to throw it all away. Even after just one forkful of the stuff, my mouth was in moderate pain, as if I had eaten something too hot (which I had not, I had waited for it to cool down). I am not likely to try that again, even though I have a couple more bags of it in the cupboard. As the Lord sayeth: "Life is more than food." Well, he sayeth that in Norwegian at least. So if you're not sure if you will survive, don't eat it!* Life is too short to risk shortening it with Mills chemically mashed potatoes (or, more likely, their chemical milk).

*)Obviously that's not what the Lord originally meant, it was probably something like "don't worry if you have to go hungry sometimes as long as you stay alive", which is less relevant around here these days.

***

After I posted the short version of the episode on my LiveJournal, a seemingly anonymous poster advised me to mash my own potatoes. Which is not a bad advice, compared to eating the industrial product that corrodes on touch. It does however take a lot more time and not least planning. (If you start playing Sims2 while the dinner is cooking, for instance, you may not notice that it is finished until the room fills with smoke.) If there had been even one more person in the family, I would have considered it a lot more deeply. Of course, if there were one more person in the family, a lot of things would have been very, very different. Including the food, I'm sure. But life is too short for a lot of things, not all of them pertaining to potatoes. Worse yet, it is single-threaded: You can not live all the lives you want, but have to choose one of them. Luckily you can read about the others online.