IRISH-AMERICAN DINING: POTATO CANDY

In February of 1903, in the Kalamazoo Gazette, there appeared an ad of unsurpassed strangeness. “TO SAVE COAL is the problem this winter,” it started, and then immediately dropped the subject, adding “but that has nothing to do with the fact that our new confection has struck the popular chord and has sprung suddenly into favor.”

The company was the German-American-owned Frielink Candy Company, and their marvelous new confection was made of potato, “but you never would know it!” they insist, a tacit admission that this was an act people would question.

They named the confection “Irish Potato Candy,” and I don’t know if they were the first to concoct such a thing, but this is the oldest reference to such a candy I could find. They also made something called “Sea Foam Chips,” and ordinarily I wouldn’t suspect a candy company would make a product using actual sea foam, but with Frielink, anything is possible.

It’s possible the Frielinks were inspired by Cubans, somehow -- a 1908 article in the Jersey Journal from New Jersey claims that there is a popular potato candy in Cuba made by mashing potatoes, combining it with pulverized sugar, adding vanilla, and pressing a walnut into the center. But, then, outside of this one article, I can find no evidence Cubans ever ate such a thing.

But similar recipes continued to appear in American newspapers from that point on. The simplest version appeared in the Cleveland Gazette in 1912, consisting of nothing more than a mashed up potato mixed with confectioner’s sugar; the combination is then rolled into small balls. An identical recipe appeared in the Grand Forks Daily Herald in the same month, suggesting that newspapers were sharing their recipes (or stealing them from each other), or that there was suddenly a national appetite for sugared potato balls.

Similarly, in 1914, a recipe for chocolate potato candies appeared both in a New Mexico newspaper and a Louisiana publication. This was the same recipe as above, but then dipped in melted chocolate and topped with a walnut. And so it went for decades, year after year bringing subtle variations of this basic recipe. In 1916, the Boston Journal suggested adding butter to the mix. In 1917, the Oregonian made the recipe into a nougat by adding nuts and fruits and making the whole thing into a loaf, which they then dipped into fondant.

None of these variations were referred to as Irish, however. They were just recipes, concocted by lunatics, to satisfy the needs of maniacs who wanted to dip potatoes into chocolate or frosting. We wouldn’t hear of Irish potato candies again until April of 1940, when the Springfield Republican published a home recipe from Glen Raven, North Carolina, shared by a woman named Maggie Lee Cooke. She offers this recipe:

IRISH POTATO CANDY

1 Irish potato, size of an egg

1 pound pulverized sugar

1 small jar peanut butter

Boil potato until done, leaving on the peeling until cooked, then peel and mash with a fork. Work in the sugar making a stiff dough. Roll thin like piecrust with a rolling pin, then spread a thin layer of peanut butter all over the crust. Roll up like a jelly roll, and cut in one-inch squares. Chill and serve.

Substantially the same recipe emerged again many years later, in 1979, in a letter in the Trenton Evening Times. The only new addition here is a teaspoon of vanilla, which is added in to the potato after it is mashed. The author of the letter was Shirley Y. Denuk Acheson of Lowell, MI, and she identifies the recipe as having been her mother’s.

For whatever reason, even though makers of the potato candy were rolling it into little balls, nobody has yet thought to make it look like a potato, although, in retrospect, doing so seems thuddingly obvious.

It wasn’t until 1983 that potato mimicry had started to become a trend in Philadelphia sweet shops. The Greensboro Record of North Carolina tracked down one such recipe, and pondered about it, with the puzzled author both saying that such candies may be popular in Ireland but that Irish people she had spoken to had never heard of such a thing. The recipe had grown more sophisticated, and was as follows:

IRISH POTATO CANDY

1 medium-sized baking potato

1 pound confectioners sugar (or more, depending on amount needed for proper consistency)

1 to 1½ cups flaked coconut (optional)

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

¼ cup cinnamon

Turn out hot baked potato pulp in a bowl. Beat with mixer until it almost resembled mashed potatoes. Mix sugar in well. (If potato isn’t hot enough to melt sugar, set the bowl in a bowl of hot water to keep it warm.)

Beat in vanilla and salt. Add coconut if desired. Or you may need to add more confectioners’ sugar, working the mixture until it reaches a consistency that will hold together when shaped like a ball.

Store mixture in jar in refrigerator for a day or two to ripen. Shape into small potato shapes, about 1-1 ½ inches long, then roll in cinnamon to depict potato skin. The blunt end of a toothpick can be pressed into potatoes to make “eyes.” Store in cool place.

It’s still with us, and sometimes still made with potatoes, although saner versions sub in coconut cream. It’s still a sort of a tradition in Philadelphia, especially around St. Paddy’s day, and an Irish-sounding company called Oh Ryan’s apparently makes a seasonal killing shipping the candy, and they can be purchased on Amazon.com, although their version lacks any potato content at all, and, the more I think about it, the odder it seems to me that there is now a candy that looks like a potato but tastes like a coconut.

See’s Candies likewise makes an Irish potato candy, and their version is chocolate, nougat, and walnuts, with a few pine nuts used to make realistic looking potato eyes, which essentially makes it just a Snickers bar. Why would you want your Snickers bar to look like a potato?

You know, I’ve come around. The Frielink Candy Company had it right at the start. If you’re going to make a candy and name it after the Irish potato, there should be some truth in advertising, and something that distinguishes it from every other candy bar on the market.

I know I’ve gone a bit sideway on this, but suddenly I very much want a candy made from potato.