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Mashed Potatoes
Pare the potatoes carefully, and boil. If they are very mealy when done, drain the water from them and mash at once. If they do not seem mealy, set them for a moment with the cover off the kettle, and they will soon be ready for the mashing. Mash them well, and to every quart of potatoes add one tablespoon of butter; one tablespoon of salt; one-half teaspoon of pepper; hot milk or cream to moisten. Mash the potatoes in the kettle in which they were boiled, beat them with a fork or spoon until light and creamy and turn out lightly in the warmed serving dish. Do not smooth the potatoes, as that will make them compact and heavy.
A sound method that needs almost no updating, with one exception: the salt is measured for an era of unsalted boiling water and blander butter.
- The saltA tablespoon of salt per quart of mashed potato is roughly 18 g, which will taste aggressively seasoned by current standards, especially if the cooking water was already salted. Start with a teaspoon, taste, and build from there.
- A quart of potatoesThe measure is by volume after mashing, not by weight of raw potato. Roughly 2 lb of peeled potatoes will yield about a quart, serving four.
- Drying the potatoes"Set them for a moment with the cover off" probably means standing the drained pan, uncovered, so surface water steams off; the text does not say whether it goes back over the heat, though low heat for a minute or two achieves it. This step is what largely decides whether the finished dish is fluffy or gluey — the recipe treats it as unnecessary for potatoes that are already mealy.
- Which potatoThe book assumes a floury, high-starch potato: russet or a similar baking variety. Waxy new potatoes will not go mealy no matter how long you steam them dry.
- Hot milk, not coldThe specification of hot milk or cream is not fussiness. Cold liquid drops the temperature of the starch and makes the potatoes stiffen and require more beating, which is exactly what turns them pasty.
- Don't overworkThe closing warning is the hinge of the recipe: the instruction is to beat only until light and creamy, and not to smooth. Over-working ruptures the starch cells and releases enough free starch to make the mash elastic. A ricer or food mill gives the lightest result; a food processor will produce wallpaper paste.
- PepperHalf a teaspoon of pepper per quart is a fair amount of heat. The recipe does not specify a type; if it was white pepper, as period American cookery often used, it would disappear visually, whereas black pepper at the same quantity will look and taste noticeably sharper.
Mashed potato as a distinct dish appears in English-language cookery by the eighteenth century, once the potato had shifted from a suspect novelty to a field crop, and by the time The Butterick Cook Book appeared in 1911 it was standard enough that the entry is really a lesson in technique rather than a formula. What dates the recipe is its assumptions about equipment and produce: potatoes were pared by hand, they were boiled in the same kettle they were mashed in, and the cook was expected to judge mealiness by eye. Butterick was better known for dress patterns.