Potato Memories and a Recipe
When I was a little girl we didn’t eat potatoes at home unless my dad cooked them. He was exclusively responsible for breakfast home-fries or holiday mashed. My mother generally avoided them and I don’t recall her liking potatoes at all. She occasionally fixed sweet potatoes for us as treats, but that was about it.
Many years ago, I asked her why she didn’t like potatoes.
Her answer was unexpected.
My mom experienced World War II as small child in Yokohama, Japan. The air-raid sirens and bombings forced her and family into shelters where food was scarce and the comforts of home were none.
I don’t remember many details except her story about potatoes.
As you can guess, it was the main ingredient to most if not all their meals. I think rice was being rationed during the war and her parents could only afford or find potatoes. And that’s pretty much all the family ate for some time.
So it goes without saying that when the war was over she still hated potatoes— so much that even as an adult they affected her with bad memories.
I know. Wow, right?
She has other interesting food stories which I’ll share at another time. I can’t imagine the hardship she endured during the war and I totally believe her when she tells me how easy I had it as a kid.
I have my own aversion to macaroni and cheese, for reasons which seem trivial compared to my mom’s background, but that’s also a story for another day. 
Okay… lest you think I’m being a total downer, let’s move on to the recipe that will leave you with happy thoughts.
Because it’s super easy, using minimal ingredients, and cooks up in less than 15 minutes!
Assembly:
Cut the potatoes in half then sprinkle with salt and pepper. Set aside. Heat a heavy skillet to medium-high, add olive oil and garlic. I omitted garlic in my batch because I served them with sausage that already had loads of garlic flavor.
When the oil is hot, add the potatoes, turning them constantly to brown them. This should take about 5 to 6 minutes. When browned, turn the heat down slightly, add the water or broth and cover for another 5 minutes. Keep an eye on it.
Remove the cover to allow further evaporation, which is another minute or so.
You may have to adjust the heat, depending on the size of the potatoes, etc.
If you don’t have these cute 2-bite potatoes, you can use fingerling potatoes or similar.
I imagine adding a pat of butter towards the end of cooking would be yummy too.
These purple potatoes have a nutty flavor which didn’t need further seasoning so I stuck with the basic.
Here they are before cooking. They’re so little and of course, “cute.”
There must be some truth to the saying, “time heals all…” because potatoes don’t seem to be an issue anymore. I have no doubt my mom would like these. And you will too!
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have a craving for potatoes and these are perfect! thanks.
my grandma talks about how she only eats the soft american supermarket white bread because the crusty whole-wheat ones remind her of poor days and rationing during the war.
in a way I’m sad that my grandparents only ate the processed American foods since it gave them comfort from their war memories.
Hi Clara, Thanks for sharing your story.
I very well know those stories about world war II, there’s a lot of them in our family (we are in Germany). You cannot imagine (and I cannot) but they did not have any spices but salt that time! My father in law told us that the best meal he could remember from that time was a “soup” of finely grated potato, grated into pure salted water and cooked. Thats all they had. No greens (salad or vegetables), no meat, no bread, sometimes nothing (exactly nothing) to eat. My mom told me they were collecting stinging nettle and other wild weed to cook. But our families are some of the happier ones – they alived and had a roof about their heads. We cannot imagine. So today there are some vegetables we really like but the elder cannot stand. Some now or then we should recall that this is the damned result of war. We live in peace all our time and sometimes we meet the family, the elder ones tell us … we have to be aware it could happen again. I am really proud of the internet generation, we can (and do) speek to each other and learn about our culture. That’s great. Puh – a lot of serious stuff
Hi Bentolily, Yes, it’s difficult to imagine the hardship our parents and grandparents indured during war. Hearing these stories makes me realize how small the world really is. Thank you for sharing.
It’s crazy how food affects moods and memory. I read your mom’s story with fascination as well as Bentolily’s. My father was in the korean marines. He loved hard boiled eggs. Couldn’t get enough of them, kept making them and popping them in his mouth always saying, ‘these eggs saved my life!’. He finally told me his story saying he wandered for days with soldiers, nothing to eat for a week until a farmer passed along with a crate full of hard boiled eggs to sell. My father ate that entire crate up! And forever after loved those eggs. lol. And me, with my cushy western life can’t stand hard boiled eggs. Very strange.
Getting off the post subject: Your potatoes look terrific! My mom fried potatoes for us as a treat when we were younger.. we loved them and still do!
Hi Chantale, Your story is interesting that your dad likes eggs because they saved his life. My mom, even though the potatoes saved her life…hated them.
You said it…”Crazy”.
Thanks so much for sharing your dads history.
What an interesting dual-cook method. I’ll have to try, since I love these baby purples too!
The only time we had potatoes at home was for potato salad. But we often had satsumaimo, Okinawan sweet and regular sweet potatoes.
I never heard any food stories born of hard times, but my dad always told me to never leave a single grain of rice in the bowl, or wash one down the drain while rinsing, and schooled me in the growth cycle so I could appreciate the amount of work it took to bring me a whole bowl of rice.
I love rice. LOVE.
Hi Sheri, Yes! I got big scoldings if I wasted rice when rinsing. We cooked and ate rice with every meal so regular potatoes did seem odd to me. I’m with you… I. Love. Rice.