We are not “food snobs”.
Really, we aren’t!! But I think I
can safely say that, in our nearly 28 years of cooking dinners together, David
and I had never once made TATER TOTS. I know
that I, for one, thought poorly of the things.
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| Oh call them what you will, Trader Joe's, ain't nobody gonna say "Potato Tots"... |
I thought of tater tots as a mushy side dish on my
elementary school cafeteria tray. And this
may not sound kind, but I also connected tater tots with the infamous Duggar
Family… They are not high on my list of “role
models” and they annoy me a ton, so I do not want to do anything “Duggar-ish”
and I put “eating tots” into that category.
(In fairness, if you do not have a negative reaction to the word “Duggar”
and if you are curious about “one of Jim Bob’s favorite dishes” (a grown man
named JIM BOB???), then here is a link to a recipe for it on their blog: click here to read the Damn Duggar recipe
Anyway, I think David and I both had some hidden
prejudice against the teeny tiny tater tot.
That is, until we had them recently at a restaurant in Cincinnati. Oh man – those tots were heavenly! They served them with good dipping sauce
(which was a new concept to me, I had heretofore only thought of dipping a tot
in ketchup). If you are in the area, go
to Revolution Rotisserie and get yourself some TOTS!
So, since we had that lovely experience with tots at the
restaurant, we decided to give it a go and try the Trader Joe’s version. And now that we have had them twice I can
safely say – WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER!
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| Having recently eaten such tasty tots in Cincinnati, David was happy to get them in the frozen food section of TJ's |
I cooked them by frying them approximately ten minutes in
olive oil. I kept flipping them so they
would cook evenly. They were smaller
tots than I expected, which scared me. It
gave me a quick flashback to Pawnee Elementary School and the mean lunch ladies
(all except for that ONE kind lady, the one who would make you TASTE the thing
you didn’t like, then actually help you hide the rest of it in your milk carton
so you wouldn’t get it trouble for leaving food on your plate…).
We served these with 3 dipping choices: wasabi mayo ( reviewed here ), Dijon mustard
(not yet reviewed) and BBQ sauce (not yet reviewed). The tots tasted good in all 3 dips!
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| Our dip choices |
David says, “These tots are a revelation! Just like watching a David Gaines physical
theatre performance* changes your nasty impression that you got from all those
bad street mimes, so these light fluffy cloud-like pillows of tater (with a lightly crisp edge) wipes away that impression
of hard, crusty, tasteless “nothing going on inside” tater tots that you
remember from elementary school cafeterias and bad restaurants since. These are LOVELY! And so quick!
You get them out, fry them up, and you have a lovely starch! (MAY I INTERJECT – OF COURSE THEY ARE QUICK,
HE DIDN’T COOK THEM, I DID…) Get
yourself a girl like Susan and you’ll be made!!”
We agreed that the wasabi mayo was the best dipping
sauce, but David took it a step further and re-dipped in bbq, too! A double dip!
I am glad that we have overcome our prejudice against tater
tots.
*Here is a link to see a blurb of a David Gaines
performance. Hopefully this will change
your impression of “mime” the way these changed ours of tots. David Gaines "7 (x1) Samurai" 90 second trailer here
Price – $2.29
Rating – 4.5
