"jmcquown" > wrote in message
. ..
> sf <.> wrote:
> > OK, I've read about rolling in salt and someone mentioned recently
> > about inserting slivers of garlic. All sounds delicious!
> >
> > I tried it tonight. Gah! How do I make the salt stick?
>
> No clue about garlic slivers in baked potatoes. I've heard of roasted
> garlic *mashed* potatoes...
>
> As for salt, rub the potatoes with butter or some say olive oil. I
suspect
> this is a more "modern" thing now that EVOO (heh) has become the big Food
> Network idea. I rub the scrubbed baking potatoes with butter because
that's
> what Mom always did, dating way back before Food TV was a gleam in
anyone's
> eye. Then poke a few holes in it with a fork and sprinkle with salt.
They
> did them that way at Red Lobster circa 1978. No foil on those potatoes
> [back then]. Makes for a nice crispy potato skin which you can eat. Yum!
>
> Jill

You "bake" a cake -- you "roast" a potato.

Weren't you people ever kids? Didn't you ever build a campfire and simply
toss in a few big baking potatoes, cover them with coals and let them roast?
No evoo, foil, fois gras, truffle oil -- just a stick of butter and a salt
shaker at hand. How do you think the game of "hot potato" was invented --
it's how you could tell when they were cool enough to peel and eat.

The skins char crisp, leaving just enough on the potato after you peel the
steaming top half to give it that campfire flavor. Then you rub on the
butter, holding the stick with the paper, salt and eat the potato out of
hand. Try it --it will be more unforgetable than many fancy institutional
dinners you are used to.

pflu