Frozen potatoes? - essay

Watch n' Wait: Yes, of course you are right. Hilary probably wouldn't have a chance. But I hope she doesn't get the nomination in the first place. I don't think we need a member of the Board of Directors of WalMart as President. Just another Corporate hack.

Frankly, I can't stand any more politics for the moment. Things are so bad and so little is being either said or done about it that I now regard the situation as hopeless. We are seriously thinking of moving either to Europe or Canada, possibly New Zealand. The U.S. under this Administration is sinking into oblivion. We have become a culture of trivia and utter nonsense. Pass the suntan lotion, might as well look healthy as we slowly fade away into history.

Do we really need frozen potatoes? I was amazed to learn there even were frozen potatoes. You see, our fairly new supermarket is more or less divided into three large sections. On the right, as you enter, is what I regard as real food. That is, fresh vegetables, fruits, fresh meat and fish, and even a modest delicatessen where you can get sandwiches, cold cuts, fried and baked chicken, stuff like that. Real food. There is also a bakery that makes fresh baked goods every day. The middle of the store is taken up by canned foods, diapers, lipsticks, deodorants, toothpaste, shampoo, feminine products, and other stuff like that. Canned goods take up a great deal of the space.
The third section is for frozen foods. As I rarely, if ever, use frozen foods, I do not typically wander in this section. Not long ago, however, someone asked me to buy some ice cream. While peering into the rows of freezers looking for what I thought was an odd brand of ice cream I discovered frozen potatoes. I was shocked! Shocked! Not only are there frozen potatoes, there are frozen potatoes galore. As I gazed in wonder at these rows of potatoes I learned there are many different versions of frozen potatoes. For example, there are frozen shoestring potatoes, shredded, hash browned, hash browned southern style, O’Briens, simply shreds, fajita fries, french fries, golden crinkled, zesties, steak fries, steak cut, tater tots, crinkle cuts, crispy crowns, taters, tater bake, and seasoned french fries. There are probably a few more that I didn’t actually observe. And, as some of these are made by more than one company, the choice for those who indulge in frozen potatoes is monumental indeed. Frozen potatoes occupy a freezer bin at least 20 feet long and somewhat more than three feet across, a very significant amount of space in our state of the art market.
Learning this, I was led to ask myself, do we really need frozen potatoes? Potatoes are cheap. Very cheap compared to most foods. Usually you can buy a 15 pound bag for well under five dollars. Indeed, potatoes here where I live sometimes can be purchased for as little as eight or nine cents a pound. Five pounds of tater tots will cost you $4.99. That is cheap as frozen potatoes go because 2 pounds of seasoned french fries are $1.98. Crispy crowns are even more expensive, as are most of the others.
But not only are potatoes cheap, they are also delicious and easy to prepare. They don’t even need to be peeled and for the most part they don’t take very long to cook. There are hundreds, if not thousands of delicious recipes for potatoes. Granted you might have to go to the trouble of washing them and cutting them up, but is that really so great a price in labor that you should turn to frozen, already prepared ones that cost three, four, or five times as much? I mean, really, how lazy can we get? And what about the satisfaction that comes from cooking a really savory dish of potatoes? Having never cooked frozen potatoes I guess they must be mostly microwaved. This does, of course, save time, time that can be devoted to other more passionate pursuits such as soap operas, hockey games, game shows, reality tv, and other such important endeavors. I wonder, do they get a lot of satisfaction out of dumping their frozen potatoes into the microwave?
Oh, I know, I know, time is money. We’re busy people. We don’t have time to cook. Have to get the kids to school, get to work on time, eat on the run: McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Roy Rogers, Arby’s, Jack in the Box, etc., etc. But remember, we’re talking potatoes here, not truite au bleu, beef wellington, confit d’oie, ballottine de caneton, or pickled pigs feet. As I’m sure you can surmise by now, I’m not into Fast Food. Actually, I’m a real aficionado of Slow Food, especially when it comes to potatoes.
Horror of horrors! I have just learned you can even buy canned potatoes! If frozen and canned potatoes are the measure of civilization, give me the simple more primitive life. I’m signing up with the slow food people today.