Hot take. Gauntlet thrown. Mashed Potatoes are the greatest Thanksgiving food of all time.
If the turkey is the quarterback the mashed potatoes are the offensive line. Without the taters, what’s the turkey to do? Mashed potatoes are the best because they not only can stand gloriously alone, but they naturally enhance everyone around them. They’re the blue collar worker of the Thanksgiving table. Indispensable. They bind everything together in order that we might call it a meal. Turkey without mashed potatoes is just a sandwich ingredient.
Nothing against turkey, or for that matter cranberry sauce, hot rolls and croissants, stuffing, or green bean casserole. They all have their place, but mashed potatoes are on an entirely different level.
The only other food that almost attains the level of mashed potatoes is the gravy. Gravy too, can bind a meal together. However, unlike smashed spuds, gravy cannot stand alone. We say mashed potatoes and gravy. Like Batman and Robin. But! add gravy to mashed potatoes - an obviously ordained pairing, as natural as peanut butter and jelly - and it’s almost not even fair to the rest of the foods.
The potato really is something. Consider.
Of all the food most humble and human, our Lord has given to us Bread and Wine. And in giving them to us as His Body and Blood He has elevated them to the highest place. Humble, human, and holy. So wonder thus at the plucky potato. This borderline miraculous creation can be used to make both! Potato bread and potato wine!
I’ve never had potato wine and I’ll admit it doesn’t sound great, but the fact that it can be done at all is a feat in and of itself worthy of admiration, ranking it, in my estimation, in the upper echelons of wonder foods. Right below bread and wine, and sharing the same tier, though not the same limelight, as the egg.
I don’t even care if you can poke holes into these arguments. I write this because I love mashed potatoes. And as we are wont to do this time of year, I am thankful that God has given to us this most marvelous food that has rightfully claimed a prominent place at the table of our High Feast of Thanksgiving. And because praising what we enjoy not only expresses but completes our enjoyment, I dote thusly:
An Ode to Mashed Potatoes
Smashed, and mashed with butter
What glories shall I utter
Of thee great spud?
How shall I tell your worth,
Hidden treasure of the earth,
Beneath the mud?
Simple, honest, countrified
Elevated! Sanctified!
And now to peel.
That you should be improved
Nature’s skin must be removed.
What a reveal!
Glimmering yellow-white
Beckoning the steel’s sharp bite
Cut down to size.
Baptized in briny brew
To boil the hell out of you.
Strain for the prize!
Add dairy! Salt and fat!
More butter! Another pat!
Use mighty force
By strength of man’s elbow,
Or by some plugged-in gizmo,
Finish the course!
Served up hot and steamy
Lo! butter-sheened and creamy,
Golden, wavy!
Now the celebration;
The apex of elation,
The end of anticipation,
O what glorious consummation!
Pass the gravy!