Syracuse Salt Potatoes

I don't know how or where I stumbled upon this recipe, but when I did I found it intriguing. The thing that most intrigued me was this: in our day and age, we are trying to find ways to cut back on sodium (as my friend Eric reminded me last night at the Korean BBQ, when he was grilling me as to the nature of my inexplicable fascination with Sonic). That said, a recipe that encourages you to use as much salt as possible seems, well, odd. But that is exactly what I found recently: a recipe for salt potatoes. This comes from Syracuse, New York, America's "salt city". This is a simple and hearty recipe that grows out of three things: poverty (more so in the 19th century than today), proximity to a central area for the American salt industry, and a large Irish-American population.

As I found in this recipe from All Recipes.com the dish really is not that difficult. It is a little disturbing with all that salt you have to use, but it's rather easy. To summarize this recipe (again, it's not mine):

Take 4 pounds of potatoes (I used ones from the farmers' market) and clean (don't peel) them, then boil them in boiling water into which you have dissolved - gasp - 1 1/2 cups of salt.

That's a lotta salt

The recipe calls for fine salt but all I had was kosher. Perhaps there would be more salt penetration with fine salt. That's an exercise for another day. Boil for 15 minutes, and pour a stick of melted butter over top. To make the recipe a little less heart-unfriendly, I cut it down to 1/2 a stick of butter.


The potatoes indeed do not need salt. Even the kosher salt penetrates and makes them softer and more flavorful than merely boiling them in unsalted water. A commenter on one site said the potatoes take on a baked potato-like consistency. I don't know how often I will do this - it does use up a lot of salt, though you will still end up consuming far less than the 1 1/2 cups the recipe calls for. But it is a simple and, I might add, very filling way to use up your potatoes.