In Episode 11 of BATCH, we spend time with the talented and charming Caroline Hatchett, author of the James Beard nominated Bitter Southerner story, “The Elusive Roots of Rosin Potatoes.” Back in 2019, Caroline, a seasoned food writer, began a quest to solve a serious mystery. Bound and determined to uncover the true origin of people cooking potatoes in vats of boiling pine rosin, she asked the living and the dead, across 10 states and two countries, “What do you know about Rosin Potatoes?” Oh, there have been legends and myths and twists and turns and rabbit holes and dead ends. And as it turns out, in Caroline’s search for the truth, we do learn a few things — mostly about the stories we tell ourselves.

Show Notes

You can read the full story at the Bitter Southerner’s website. Here’s a link: https://bittersoutherner.com/feature/2022/the-elusive-roots-of-rosin-potatoes

It can also be found in our new book Food Stories: writing that stirs the pot, available here: https://bsgeneralstore.com/products/food-stories

And for adventurous chefs looking to make their own rosin potatoes, here’s where you can find Diamond G’s rosin, salves and turpentine : http://www.diamondgforestproducts.com/index.html

Credits

Hosted by Kyle Tibbs Jones

Produced by Ryan Engelberger

Engineered by Thomas Sully Allen at Tweed Recording in Athens, GA. Caroline Hatchett recorded her own audio.

Buster Cole’s audio comes from a video made by Davis Skinner, at the Georgia Agricultural History Museum in Tifton, GA. Special thanks to Dr. Alan Hodges and the University of Florida digital media collections.

The theme music for Batch was made by Curt Castle.

This episode of Batch (in fact this whole batch of food stories) was made possible by the support of E Pluribus Unum. Learn more at https://www.unumfund.org/