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Baked Potatoes
As potatoes contain potash, an important constituent of the blood, freely soluble in water, they are much more wholesome and easily digested baked than boiled, and should always be given to invalids or dyspeptics in this form.
Wash and scrub the potatoes, place them in a bakingpan, then in a quick oven to bake thirty minutes. The time depends on the size of the potatoes, but bake until they mash gently between the thumb and finger. Do not try them by piercing with a fork, as this breaks the skin and allows the steam to escape and the potato will be heavy and watery. Cold baked potatoes left over may be made into stuffed potatoes and put away for another meal, but they must be stuffed while warm and then baked when needed.
A straightforward baked potato, with a few period assumptions worth translating.
- "Quick oven"That means 425-450F. Thirty minutes will only suit small potatoes; a medium russet needs 45-60 minutes at 425F.
- Testing for donenessThe squeeze test still works and is still better than stabbing, though the reasoning is overstated. Use a towel or mitt and press the sides; the flesh should yield with no firm core.
- Skip the fork, but do split themOnce baked, cut the potato open immediately and let the steam out. Left whole to sit, it steams itself dense inside the skin, which is the very texture the original is warning against.
- Choice of potatoA dry, starchy potato bakes fluffy; waxy new potatoes and most red-skinned varieties will stay damp no matter what the oven does. Russets or another floury baking type give the intended result.
- The potash claimPotatoes are indeed high in potassium, and boiling does leach some of it into the water. The rest of the nineteenth-century reasoning about blood constituents and digestibility is not something to plan a diet around.
- Stuffed potatoes made aheadScooping and mashing while the potato is warm is sound advice for texture. Refrigerate the filled shells rather than leaving them at room temperature, and reheat at 375-400F for about 20 minutes.
- YieldOne medium potato per person as a side; two if they are small or the meal is light.
Baking rather than boiling potatoes was a minor point of health doctrine in late nineteenth-century domestic cookery, when writers often attached chemical reasoning to plain kitchen practice — potash, then a familiar word from soap-making and fertiliser, turns up in period discussions of blood and nutrition. Books of this period frequently treated invalid cookery as a distinct branch of the subject, and a potato baked in its skin was among the dishes commonly recommended for anyone described as dyspeptic. The practical core of the advice, that a punctured skin lets steam escape and leaves the flesh heavy, holds up better than the physiology attached to it, and the instruction to stuff leftovers while they are still warm reflects a household economy in which little baked was allowed to go to waste.