Peeling a Potato, Apple, or other peelable food
Apr 10th, 2008 by satisfyte
Peeling a vegetable or fruit with a peeler is wicked satisfying for a lot of reasons. First, you have your whole item that’s just waiting to be peeled. It’s best if you have a nice dirty potato because you can fully appreciate each swipe of the blade as it exposes the shiny clean potato underneath. Or maybe a shiny apple that’s just begging you to disrobe it and throw it in a pie. I know, it seems like an awful lot of these entries relate to food. But food is really something that harbors a lot of satisfaction potential, beyond taste. It’s something you touch and it’s often designed to look as appealing as possible, so it only makes sense.
A surefire way to turn an otherwise wicked satisfying vegetable or fruit peeling experience into an unsatisfying one is to approach your victim with a dull blade. Resting an old, crappy peeler blade against the shiny skin of an apple, giving it a push and making just a dent as the peeler slips violently out of control and nearly chops off your finger is one of the more unsatisfying experiences in life. Not only are you now sweating at your near-surgery, but your apple has a dent. And it’s going to get brown under there. Gross.
If you have a nice sharp peeler, though, you can blaze through any skin-bearing food with ease (ok, maybe not chicken…). I used to have this crappy old peeler that came in this like, 80 piece bargain dorm cooking set from Target that I got during college. There’s a reason that it was a bargain set. The peeler would regularly slip, got all rusty, and I’d have to practically give myself carpel tunnel trying to just get a pie put together. But then, I discovered the wonders of a good peeler (yet again, thank you, Alton Brown). Alton gave me a little tour of his gadget drawer (don’t get any ideas…) while I was watching his show one day, and I knew I had to have those peelers.
Lo and behold, under my Christmas tree, I found two razor-sharp, wicked satisfying kitchen tools ready to strip fruits and vegetables down to their delicious flesh. One “Y peeler”, and one “swivel peeler”. When peeling with a good peeler, you watch the strips of potato skin fly away as though a culinary sprite is guiding you. You might have to be careful that you don’t get so satisfied by the peeling experience that you shave your carrots into nothingness. Meh, at least you can toss the carrot shavings in a salad.
Don’t you just want to have some mashed potatoes now?
(4 votes, average: 3.25 out of 5)
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Absolutely agree about the filthy potato! Those first few swipes are definitely the best - before it gets all dirty and gritty from turning it over in your hand. Apples though… they really get on my nerves. They are too round to get a good swipe in… and they are already pretty clean anyway so you don’t get the huge surge of satisfaction as shaving the gross skin of the potato.
I love your sense of humor - the college scenario on your about page reminds me of my roommate and I who were both English/Lit nerds and would stay up all night drinking Mountain Dew and laughing until we were out of breath about writing writing related things (I’m not even going to try and explain) that I highly doubt the vast majority of the world would not appreciate. I am definitely subscribing to this blog!
That is a good point about the apple. Sometimes the waxy shiny skin can just be annoying to even try to get started with a peeler. Potatoes are definitely the most satisfying food I’ve peeled. Carrots are okay but kind of prone to slippage. Digging out the eyes of the potato with that little nub on the side/end of the peeler is also pretty satisfying.
[…] yield a wicked satisfying kitchen experience. You might never look at a potato the same way again.http://www.wickedsatisfying.com/2008/04/10/peeling-a-potato-apple-or-other-peelable-food/Potato - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaPotato fruit contains large amounts of the toxic alkaloid […]