The Art of Peeling a Potato

Okay, I know you are laughing now.  Many of you have never peeled a potato, or watched one being peeled.  You might want to know what brought this topic to mind, and my answer is I was peeling potatoes for dinner.  The older members of my family (deceased now) had peeling a potato down to a fine art.

You may be asking yourself what in the heck does she mean.  There was no waste.  My grandmother, mom and aunt slid the knife just under the skin of the potato and went all around one time without breaking the peeling.  Then they dug out the potato eye by sticking the point of the knife into the eye (a piece of the skin  deeper than the rest of the skin for those of you who don’t know) and digging it out instead of peeling deeper to get it out.  Like I said, there was no waste.

This was a time period when people grew their own potatoes and people didn’t have much.  These days, we live in a throwaway world so saving as much of the potato as you can is considered a waste of time because most of us can’t do it fast like our older family members did.  I know I can’t, but once in awhile I try to do one peel around.  Sometimes, I manage to do it, but it’s slow. 

I really wish I could be fast and do one peel around the potato.  I often wonder how my grandmother made it look so easy.  She came from a farming family, so I know she was taught how to peel a potato, and she must have gotten lots of practice.  Wink!

I hope you enjoyed my blog today.  Have a wonderful week and come back next Sunday. 

Sandra K. Marshall

http://www.eirelander-publishing.com