Yet another joke I don't get. But let me tell you something, you Englishmen are nice guys, you know many things, but you don't have a clue about food. Or cooking. Or cuisine. However you call it. I hope I don't offend anyone, but I simply had to say it.
I heard many legends about English cooking, but never believed it myself. I was in England twice, but I have eaten in "foreign" restaurants, we here don't have exotic cuisine, so when I was in London I had to try everything that big city as London offers, so I ate in Lebanese, Thai, Indian etc. restaurants, never tried anything "English". When my wife was a student she was in England few times, as babysitter with different families, and told me what you Englishmen eat. Never believed her, for me that was just exaggerated stories from some foreign lands.
So, I'm watching this English documentary about parents with anorexic daughter, and how they're trying to help her change. And in this documentary the mother takes some white powder, it mixes it with water and calls it "mash potatoes". I got instantely upset, what's going on here, no wonder this child is anorexic, somebody must stop this monstrous parents. I called my wife and said: "Look, what's going on. They're mixing some powder with water, claiming they're giving the poor child potatoes!" She said: "No, it's normal, in England they use this powder, and call it potatoes. They use other such staff, they don't cook, they use only pre-prepaired meals". I couldn't calm myself: "But this must be stopped! Poor Englishmen! We are all Europeans, this shouldn't be tolerated. I'll start some humanitarian aid, we'll collect potatoes all around Slovenia and send them to England", but she said: "Calm down, they have potatoes, but they just don't know how to use them." But still I wondered: "Does it taste like potatoes? And how do they know it's mash potatoes and not mash carrots or something?" She said: "You don't want to know how it tastes, you'll get upset again. And they recognize mash potatoes from something else because of the colouring".
Anyway, it may not interest the majority of you, but here's the recipe, as we say it "even if you help one person, you help the whole humanity":
You peel the potatoes (not the powder, but the true ones). You put it in water. You add salt. After water boils you leave potatoes boiling for some 20-25 minutes and check if they're soft enough with fork (don't worry with this part, just boil them for 25 minutes). Remove the water (don't spill the water on yourself, it boiling water can harm you!). Add butter or some milk or both (please don't use any butter or milk in powder, but the real stuff,in case you don't know: the butter is compact and milk is liquid). Then mash them. Here you go, you got yourself mash potatoes.
