How Tater Tots Went From Potato Scraps To The Icon It Is Today
If there were a deep fried snack food as iconic as the French fry, it would be tater tots. These crunchy potato nuggets have been a frozen food staple as long as we can remember. If you’re wondering where these delicious snacks first came from, though, we’ve found the answer, thanks to Eater.
Photo: Mr. TinDC on Flickr.
It turns out that tater tots came about as a way to use leftover food waste. In the early 1950s, frozen French fry manufacturer Ore-Ida made an important realization regarding their potato trimmings. Instead of just feeding the surplus of spuds to cattle, owners F. Nephi and Golden Grigg decided to convert the scraps into a new product. After developing a new process that smashes the potato pieces into a moldable mix before cooking and freezing them, tater tots were born.
In 1954, Nephi convinced a chef at the National Potato Convention to serve his creation. The tots were a huge hit, and from that point on have been a staple in the frozen food aisle. Ore-Ida became a household name through their tots, and still own the trademark to that name today. Kraft eventually brought the company into its arsenal back in 1965, allowing tater tots to reach everywhere that the food giant sells its products.
Nowadays, there are chefs who attempt to make their own gourmet tots. We also love to throw just about anything from esquites corn to soft shell crab on the potato nuggets, turning them into a complete meal. Despite how tots are elevated today, we shouldn’t forget their origins as a way to limit food waste. Hopefully, as food waste becomes an increasingly crucial issue in the future, more novel creations like tater tots come to life.
