As his wife put dinner on the table, my son took me aside. “I’m just warning you this is Tater Tot casserole and it’s disgusting. But you’ve got to excuse Abbie. She’s from Nebraska and can’t help it.” In the Midwest there are thousands of versions of Tater Tot hotdish. It’s a classic regional specialty. Every cook has a favorite recipe and just about all of them contain canned cream-of-something soup, cheese, one or more kinds of canned or frozen vegetables and Tater Tots.
To change from a side to an entrée, just add hamburger. In some communities the dish is called “funeral casserole” since it is a mainstay whenever comfort food is called for.
Tater tots were invented in Idaho in 1953 when Ore-Ida co- founders F. Nephi and Golden Griggs were trying to figure out what to do with slivers of cut-up potatoes left over after French fries were formed. They grated the small pieces, added flour and seasoning, and pushed the mash through holes. The mixture that came out the other side was cut into bite-sized cylinders, deep fried and frozen.
They couldn’t come up with a name for their new potato product so they held a contest among employees and their friends. A young housewife, Cora Lay Orton, entered the name Tater Tot and took the win. Originally, the product was very inexpensive but nobody bought it. A marketing expert advised the Griggs to raise the price to increase its perceived value. That’s all it took. Today, Americans consume approximately 70 million pounds of Tater Tots per year. That’s a lot of pounds of Tots, more than the entire populations of California and Texas combined.
My mother was also raised in Nebraska, which probably explains why she dumped a can of cream of mushroom soup onto almost everything she made. To this day, it’s hard for me to choke down anything that involves cream soup in a can. But Abbie’s Tater Tot casserole wasn’t so bad after all.
Still, I’d rather have Tater Tots for breakfast with cheese and a fried egg, for lunch with catsup, or for dinner smothered in nacho fixings. Please leave the can of cream of mushroom soup in Nebraska.
This also appeared in the Wenatchee World.