U.S. Janet B. wrote:
>
>Now that I think about it, I do a sort of cross over. In recent years
>I have occasionally been making mashed potatoes from red potatoes. I
>leave them skins on, roughly mash them and mix them with butter, milk,
>sour cream and horseradish. Those are mighty fine mashed potatoes.
>I think I just became accustomed to certain texture for potato salad
>and mashed potatoes.

Even throughout childhood mashed potatoes was rarely on the menu, only
for holiday meals with company expected. Otherwise my mother would
boil potatoes and anyone wanted mashed could mash them on their
plate... I still occasionally do that when I get the urge for
childhood comfort food, I like mine very lumpy, mashed with plain
yogurt or sour cream, sometimes buttermilk when available... and fresh
dill. I find the mashed potatoes most people prepare are way over
worked, more like library paste, they may as well prepare instant from
a box.

As a child there was always a big bowl of cold boiled potatoes in the
fridge, a staple to be used however one wanted; salads, added to hash,
fried with eggs, and my favorite was sliced into cold soup,
borscht/shav. I still often slice cold boiled potatoes into tossed
salads... makes a bowl of greens a lot more filling and I never did
like croutons in a salad, still don't. My father was Latvian and I
still have his eating style. My mother was an excellent cook and she
cooked whatever he liked. Her parents being European they had very
similar eating preferences but she also prepared a lot of foods she
liked but he didn't. My mother was big into pickled herrings and I
like that still, only the jarred ones don't compare to her homemade...
what I wouldn't give for a bowl of her homemade chopped herring.