When did the phrase “breakfast potatoes” rear its ugly head? One more encounter with it, and I may begin to twitch uncontrollably. I already know the meal is breakfast. Couldn’t you say how you’re cooking those potatoes?
Part of this may be due to the creeping ubiquity of frozen shreds of potato sometimes browned to order and other times done beforehand, then kept warm on a steam table. Mostly flying under the flag of “hash browns,” they were often reasonably tasty—especially if cooked with onions—and a fine way to sop up egg yolk. These days, more often than not, restaurants serve suspiciously nonrandom pieces of barely thawed potato thrown into a fryer to crisp a little. The result is even more tasteless than it sounds.
I admit to being fussy about traditional breakfast foods. It’s too early in the morning to tolerate the wrong stuff. But I still dream of the potatoes at the now-gone Delmonico Diner. That’s all they were called: potatoes. But they were perfect alongside a hot link, eggs over easy, and a biscuit. Fried with plenty of onion and sprinkled with salt and pepper, they were happy to wait for the appreciative customer who understood that, like people, potatoes don’t have to look good to be good. The spotty brown parts meant texture and taste.
The ladies on the line at the Del didn’t have to tell me how they cooked those potatoes—I could see them. But to everyone else: Give me a hint, OK?
