One potato, two potato…

It’s been some time since I’ve served up a ThThTh post, but the recent wave of tuber-related posts got my mind churning up a big heapin’ mess o’ potato-themed things. Plus it’s Thanksgiving Day here in the US, and potatoes are part of the feast tradition.¹

Dig in!

• One potato, two potato: a “counting-out game.”
  

  One potato, two potato, three potato, four
  Five potato, six potato, seven potato, more



• Mr. Potato Head: a classic plastic toy from Hasbro, shaped like a potato with re-arrangeable features and appendages. Was featured as an animated character voiced by in the Toy Story movie franchise.³
• Viva la Papa! Long live the potato! I don’t know how true it is, but I remember that there was allegedly some confusion about the Spanish phrase meaning “the Pope,” (El Papa) and possibly some misprinted merchandise.
• Green potatoes: are apparently somewhat toxic, according to Snopes. (Snopes was not able to help me about the la papa, el papa question, and had this to offer on the topic of potatoes.)
• The Potato Famine: another name for the Great Famine, which occurred in Ireland between 1845 and 1852 when potato crops failed due to the potato blight.
  

  Although blight ravaged potato crops throughout Europeduring the 1840s, the impact and human cost in Ireland – where one-third of the population was entirely dependent on the potato for food – was exacerbated by a host of political, social and economic factors which remain the subject of historical debate.

  Sinead can tell you more about it.

• Famine, a song by Sinead O’Connor
  

  OK, I want to talk about Ireland
  Specifically I want to talk about the “famine”
  About the fact that there never really was one
  There was no “famine”
  See Irish people were only ALLOWED to eat potatoes
  All of the other food
  Meat fish vegetables
  Were shipped out of the country under armed guard
  To England while the Irish people starved
• taters: a slang term for potatos.
• tater tots: the children of potatoes.⁴
• spud: a slang term for potatoes
• Spuds MacKenzie: not actually a potato.
• drop like a hot potato: an idiom meaning “suddenly stop associating with” whoever or whatever is likened to the hot potato. Example: She acted like she wanted to be my friend, but when she learned that I was only small potatoes , she dropped me like a hot potato.
• Hot Potatoes: a song by The Kinks from 1972 [listen on YouTube]
• mashed potatoes: what might happen to hot potatoes that have been dropped.
• mashed potato: a dance step that was popular in the early 60s
• small potatoes: an idiom meaning “insignificant.” (Small potatoes are really tasty for roasting, though.)
• new potatoes: small young potatoes (that are not tater tots)



• Potato-potahto: From the song “Let’s call the whole thing off” While the tomato/tomahto variation happens, it would seem that the potato alternation probably doesn’t exist outside of the song.
• Potatoe: a mispelling of potato which achieved great fame when former Vice President Dan Quayle incorrectly corrected a kid at a spelling bee to add the e at the end.
• couch potato: a term for someone who sits around a lot, especially on a couch. (This totally does not apply to me, as right now, I am sitting on a chair. Not a couch. The dent in the couch cushion in no way suggests that I spend too much time sitting there. Nope.)
• Potato: a song. (Thank you Sally for bringing this potato to the table!)
  

Okay, it turns out I dug up too many potatoes. I decided to save away some of the extra potatoes. I’ll reheat them for you tomorrow…
—

¹They also go well with the ThThTh posts served up on Thanksgivings past: turkeys, bread, and utensils.²

² It’s ThThThThanksgiving.

³ I feel compelled to mention that this potato is being reused. Mr. Potato Head has already appeared in one of my ThThTh lists. Over 4 years ago.

⁴ Assuming that “children” is a term meaning “small cylinders made of shredded bits of the parents, who happen to be potatoes, which have been deep fried.”

image credits: Mr. Potato Head (Hasbro)The small poatoes were mine.