Tater Tots have become downright iconic, yet how much do we really know about these tasty,
crispy potato treats? They make appearances in diners, at parties and, occasionally, in
blockbuster movies. And how they were invented might surprise you. Here's the untold truth
of Tater Tots.
In 2017, Eater took a deep-dive investigative journey into the history of Tater Tots. It
all began with F. Nephi Grigg and his brother, Golden Grigg, two determined young Mormon
entrepreneurs who each owned a potato farm, selling the bounty of their land to friends
and neighbors.
Prior to his death in 1995, Nephi wrote his own unpublished History of the Tot. Nephi
was a visionary, who believed frozen foods would soon dominate America's food industry.
Following his hunch, the brothers mortgaged their farms and purchased a flash-freezing
plant in nearby Oregon, with a plan to transform their potato crop into frozen French fries.
After some trial and error, they were able to rework the potato-cutting machinery to
separate the fries from the leftover slivers, which were used as cattle feed. An entrepreneur
who hated waste, Nephi cooked up the idea of compacting those unwanted potato scraps
into bite-sized nuggets that could be fried or baked.
"You gonna eat your tots?"
"No."
"Can I have 'em?"
Naming their company after the two states in which they operated, Oregon and Idaho,
Ore-Ida Foods Inc. was born.
Tater Tots made their grand debut in 1954 at the National Potato convention at Miami's
fancy Fontainebleau hotel.
Nephi had come up with a genius plan to launch Ore-Ida's new culinary creation in spectacular
style. After tracking down the chef in the hotel's kitchen, the crafty entrepreneur bribed
him to cook up 15 pounds of the potato-based invention he'd brought with him, and then
serve the tots to convention attendees at breakfast.
His hunch that the potato bites would make a major impression on the assembled potato
industry bigwigs was a good one. It worked even better than he'd hoped and laid the groundwork
for all the future success that lay glimmering on the horizon.
Ore-Ida's founders had perfected their product, invented as a way to prevent unnecessary waste
in production of their flash-frozen French fries. According to Nephi's notes, which said:
"[An unnamed salesman] traveled the markets playing a ukulele and demonstrating our product
[and was armed only with] a thesaurus and an affinity for alliteration."
However, there's another origin story circulating about how the Griggs' potato-scrap side dish
came to be called Tater Tots. The company created a contest, inviting folks from all
over America to submit their ideas.
In this version of the story, the winning entry came from housewife Clora Lay Orton,
combining the word "tater" which is slang for potato and "tot," a word describing an
infant — basically, baby potatoes.
To capitalize on that brief window before the market would be flooded with imitators,
the name "Tater Tot" was trademarked, new machinery purchased, and production ramped
up to mass-produce their new food item.
Tater Tots became a hot thing — they quickly took off, carving out an entirely new market
share that hadn't existed before.
As is usually the case when a new product becomes an established hit with consumers,
other companies began producing their own version of Tater Tots under different names.
However, even when consumers came to buy the knockoffs, they still referred to the imitators
as Tater Tots, similar to how brands such as Band-Aids, Kleenex and Corn Flakes came
to become generic terms for both the original product and its imitation versions.
As The New York Times reported in 2014, Ore-Ida struck back with its "Imi-Taters" advertising
campaign. In one of the commercials, Tater Tot-like products are seen wearing various
disguises in hopes of tricking consumers, ranging from a Groucho Marx nose-glasses-mustache
combo to a pirate outfit.
Federico Arreola, vice president of the consumer products brand business unit at Heinz, owner
of the Ore-Ida brand, said:
"The 'Imi-Taters' campaign was very successful."
The campaign, Arreola added, was effective at reminding consumers that, quote, "the original
is the only one."
DIY Tots! In addition to imitation Tater Tots, the product has also been hit by competition
from home cooks who've concocted their own recipes. Creating DIY Tater Tots, however,
is not as easy as it might appear.
Making the bite-sized potato nuggets without all that specialized machinery is actually
quite an undertaking. David Kinch, chef at acclaimed California restaurant Manresa, has
shared his special recipe for DIY Tater Tots; anyone who attempts to tackle it, however,
will probably want to take the day off, given that the recipe takes a whopping 12 hours
to make.
As Wes Rowe, chef and owner of San Francisco's Wesburger 'N' More told Eater, they had made
their own homemade Tater Tots in the past, but decided to stop doing that and instead
serve customers OG Ore-Ida tots. Rowe said:
"After all the time and labor we all agreed we just love our classic Ore-Ida tots the
most."
One unfortunate side effect of the production process that creates Tater Tots is when starch-heavy
food are heated at high temperatures, it creates a chemical called acrylamide.
But it wasn't until 2002 that its presence was detected in food; this presented a big
problem, given that the state of California was already listing acrylamide as one of the
carcinogenic substances listed within Proposition 65.
That legislation, passed in 1984, required that consumers be given warnings about any
cancer-causing substances they may come into contact with — which included the presence
of acrylamide in Tater Tots.
"Bottom line, acrylamide is not a new problem. More than likely it has been around in some
form or amount since we began to cook."
As the result of a lawsuit launched by the state of California against Ore-Ida and other
manufacturers of potato products, Ore-Ida agreed to a settlement that involved paying
$600,000 in costs and penalties, in addition to cutting acrylamide levels in the company's
French fries and Tater Tots in half.
Folks who love Tater Tots have unleashed their creativity on clever and occasionally bonkers
recipes that take the bite-sized spud snacks in some bold new culinary directions. For
example, Brit+Co compiled a roster of 17 unique hacks that use Tater Tots as the basis of
everything from waffles to a bacon cheeseburger Tater Tot casserole.
Other hacks include appetizers such as bacon-wrapped Tater Tot bombs, Buffalo chicken Tater Tot
nachos, and even a Tater Tot breakfast pizza. For a meat-free Tater Tot hack, adventurous
home cooks can try out this recipe for a Tater Tot burger, which uses Tater Tots to create
a meatless, vegetarian patty designed to satisfy even the most ardent meat-eater.
In addition, Tater Tots are also becoming popular to hack at Hanukkah , with recipes
available online demonstrating how to use Tater Tots to create easy-to-make latkes.
And the Mythical Kitchen offers a cheese, bacon and sour cream Tater Tot bowl.
Anyone who's been following the cooking instructions on the packaging of Tater Tots has been doing
themselves a major disservice. Or at least, that's the opinion of The Kitchn's Kelli Foster,
who wrote in 2018 that cooking those little potato nuggets using the recommended time
on the package may heat them enough to render them edible, but she said:
"[That's] hardly enough for them to reach their full crispy-crusted, creamy-centered
potential."
Foster recommends putting your stopwatch away and instead looking at "visual cues" to determine
when a batch of Tater Tots has reached nirvana-like perfection. She added:
"You'll know the tots are done and ready when they have a deep golden-brown color with an
outer crust that looks exceptionally crispy."
According to Foster, the brand's recommended cooking time — 25 to 35 minutes — simply
isn't long enough to achieve that Tater Tot ideal; instead, she recommends a solid 60
minutes in the oven.
As Foster pointed out, that additional cooking time makes the most delicious difference in
both the taste and texture of tater tots by causing them to, quote, "Shrink and dry out
a little."
Foster concluded:
"[And that] makes them even crispier all around on the outside with a potato-y center that's
more dense and creamy."
For a brief and glorious six-week period in the spring of 2018, Vancouver sports bar Yaggers
created an all-Tater Tots menu. The ultimate goal was an attempt to make all of the bar's
patrons' wildest potato-fueled dreams come true.
Yaggers' specialty menu items included Tot Esquites, Cheesy Tots, and Tot Poutine; for
the latter, Tater Tots were substituted for French fries in the quintessentially Quebecois
specialty known as poutine , in which crispy fries — or, in this case, Tater Tots — are
topped with hunks of cheese curds and drenched in savory gravy.
There are indeed many ways to hack Tater Tots, using the crispy potato snacks as the basis
for entirely new and unforeseen culinary delights. In that vein, fans of Tater Tots should pay
tribute to Jim Parker, a former Portland journalist who was at the forefront of the Pacific Northwest
city's pioneering craft beer movement.
In an obituary of Parker, who passed away in 2019, The Oregonian highlighted another
of his achievements: totchos.
What are totchos? Exactly what you think, nachos but with Tater Tots substituted for
corn chips, topped with black olives, melted cheese, jalapeños , sour cream, and other
toppings traditionally associated with nachos.
The Tater Tot-based meal became a staple of Parker's Oaks Bottom Public House in Portland.
Parker said of his invention in 2015:
"They looked at me like I was growing a third ear. They said, 'That sounds like stoner food.'
They were humoring me to put them on the menu, but it ended up being one of our most ordered
items."
Tater Tots are more than just a delicious snack; in fact, the bite-sized potato gems
have also become part of pop culture. This became evident in the 2018 film Venom, based
on the Marvel Comics character.
"Food."
"Ah! Who said that?"
As played by actor Tom Hardy, Eddie Brock is a maverick journalist who becomes paired
with an alien symbiote to become the titular Venom, a massive, monstrous beast with a seemingly
insatiable appetite — which Hardy attempts to satiate in a memorable scene by pouring
an entire bag of still-frozen Tater Tots down his gullet.
In an interview with SyFyWire, director Ruben Fleischer explained the character's obsession
with Tater Tots, which had nothing to do with product placement. He said:
"There was no deal with Ore-Ida, it just was in the script originally. It was always kind
of a funny thing that the writers came up with, that he loves Tater Tots. We actually
had to pare it down a little bit. There was a scene that we shot that didn't make it in
the film, where he's at the grocery store buying and the Venom tendrils come out and
grab a bunch of Tater Tots."
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