Why do Russians eat potatoes without the skin?

[George Kalbouss]

Here are the recollections of an oldster.  The practice of eating potato skins originated
in the US, and probably in the late 60's.  I think it was accompanied by the advent of putting
sour cream on potatoes instead of, or with, butter  (funny, that seems like a Russian thing
to do).  Not long afterwards, "potato skins" began appearing, served as an appetizer in bars
with cheese, sour cream, bacon bits, and so on.  Since then, skins began appearing on french fries, potato salad, ettc.
I wonder if it was sour cream that turned Americans onto skin. 

	Another seemingly uninteresting food became glorified not long afterwards, i.e., the
chicken wing, spiced up in the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, NY, and hence, the "buffalo wing."

	While discussing items that Americans consume which others do not, how about that
staple, H2O, which Europeans would be caught dead drinking unless it was mineral water?  
Ice cubes are not far behind.  Ditto ice cold beer.

George Kalbouss
Prof. (Emer.)  Slavic Languages and Literatures
The Ohio State University


On Feb 8, 2010, at 8:55 AM, Don Livingston wrote:

> I wonder if there has been a shift in US attitudes towards potatoes eaten
> with their skins on? To my memory, in the sixties (in Arizona) we always ate
> the center of our baked potatoes, but never the skins.  In the early
> seventies I remember being quite surprised when I first saw someone eat a
> baked potato skin, and I also recall a college conversation in the eighties
> where one of my friends insisted that one did not have to clean the potatoes
> before baking them.  (Potatoes sold in standard grocery stores at the time
> were already washed, so she felt one did not have to wash them again.)  I
> concluded at the time that if one intended to eat the skins, one scrubbed
> them again before cooking which had two effects:  1- it removed what little
> dirt remained, and 2- it made the skins thinner and more tender since we
> used a stiff plastic vegetable brush to scrub them.
> 
> So from my solipsistic perspective, eating potatoes skin-on was less common
> in the sixties, more common in the seventies, and very common from the
> eighties onward.  Perhaps people older than I can fill in the years previous
> to that?
> 
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