Back to School

Yesterday when I was driving to and from work, the radio discussion during both commutes was about school lunches. Kids need to eat healthier, they need more fruits and veggies, they need more real food. I agree with all of this, and I’m a huge fan of a pioneering program in Berkeley, The Edible Schoolyard, that introduces kids to growing and cooking fresh food. So why, then, when I started thinking about school lunches could I not get Tater Tots off my mind?
The Tater Tot, in all its greasy splendor, is a food that brings me instantly back to Badger Mountain Elementary.The aroma of the greasy little potato morsels even hovers around my memories of high school and could probably be bottled and sold as “Eau de School Cafeteria” . The Tater Tot never disappoints. It is always as starchy, greasy and salty as you remember it being. Last night I bought a bag in the freezer section (100 tots for only $1.99!), baked ‘em in the oven and dipped the little taters in a healthy portion of ketchup. I probably won’t crave them again for another year, but man, did they hit the spot. For the record, the salty snack pairs much better with an ice-cold vodka martini than it does with a half-pint of school milk.
You may know this food by another name such as Potato Puffs or Spud Puppies. Growing up in the Pacific Northwest it was always Tater Tot, as coined by a “local” Oregon/Idaho company called Ore-Ida (now owned by Heinz) that trademarked the name in the fifties. Tater Tots may have even been invented in the Pacific Northwest when the workers at Ore-Ida were trying to find a way to use the scraps left over from their French Fry production. Sure, we exported Microsoft and Starbucks and Amazon.com and Pearl Jam, but Tater Tots? Now that’s something the locals can really be proud of.
On a school related side note, if you’d like to mark the beginning of the school year in a way that is much classier and substantive than Tater Tots, I highly recommend A Class Apart, a fascinating book written by a good friend who also happens to be an award-winning journalist. Twenty some years after graduating from Stuyvesant high school in Manhattan, Alec Klein went back. His non-fiction account of the students who currently attend the ultra-competitive school is inspiring, humbling and thought-provoking. I highly suggest it as a fall read and expect the book will attract a great deal of attention - you heard about it here first!