Rosin Potatoes
Clarissa Clifton is the author of One Hearth, One Pot: For Love of Food and History.
This recipe is featured in The Almost-Lost Art of Rosin Potatoes
- Cook 1 1/2 hours
- Servings As desired; potatoes will be cooked 3 at a time
Ingredients
- Cast iron pot (should be deep enough to easily hold rosin without fear of boiling over)
- Rosin (amount should equal two 1-gallon paint cans of solid rosin, more if your pot is larger)
- Fire pit
- Tripod
- Wood
- Newspaper cut or ripped into squares
- As many potatoes (white or sweet) as you desire (to be cooked three at a time)
- Butter, bacon, onions or whatever you desire to spread or sprinkle over potatoes
Preparation
1. Start a fire in a pit and place the tripod over it. Make sure the tripod is securely hammered into the ground to avoid the rosin pot tipping.
2. Place the rosin into the pot, and put the pot of solid rosin over fire so it will melt. Check with a spoon to make sure that the rosin has completely melted on the bottom.
3. Once the rosin has melted, drop the potatoes into the pot. Begin by cooking three at a time until you are comfortable with your pot of rosin. You will see bubbles in the rosin as the water is being forced out of the potato. Watch carefully, adjusting the heat as necessary, to be sure that the rosin will not boil over into the fire.
4. Wait for the potatoes to float to the surface of the rosin, which will take about 1 hour. (Total cooking time will be about 1 hour and 30 minutes.) You can test a potato by touching it with a long handled metal spoon. The potatoes are hard initially but as they rise they become softer and almost spongy when touched. DO NOT BREAK THE SKIN; if you break the skin, you cannot eat that potato.
5. Once the potatoes rise to the top, which should take about 1 hour, allow them to continue cooking for another 30 minutes. Scoop one potato out of the rosin and wrap in newspaper. The rosin will instantly adhere to the newspaper. You cannot eat the skin. After a few minutes split open the potato through the newspaper and push the ends of the potato inward. If done you should get a nice fluffy little cloud of potato in the middle. Now you will know exactly how long it will take and if you can do more than 3 potatoes at a time. This is where you gain finesse.
6. If you want to make mashed potatoes that have a good potato flavor, leave the potatoes in the rosin until the ends begin to wrinkle. Wrap them in newspaper and split the potato open so that you can scoop out the insides. Add butter, cream, whatever you like for seasoning. Then mash or whip together. You will have produced a mashed potato dish that has real potato flavor in it.
Clarissa Clifton
Clarissa Clifton is the author of One Hearth, One Pot: For Love of Food and History. Her focus of food history is on Southern poverty food. Southern poverty food is a term coined post Civil War and relates to food that was looked down on by those in the elite 10 percent both in and out of the South. Clarissa falls into the 90 percent that called it simply food. Southern poverty food not only related to how food was seasoned but the inventive ways it was prepared, ranging from roasting meats over saplings to baking chicken in cabbage leaves to rosin potatoes. Clarissa has made it her life mission to study the food that 90 percent of Southerners ate before and after the Civil War.
Courtesy photo
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