I use only once in a while. As far as kitchen tools go, it isn t as glamorous as my fancy French mandoline, but it performs the job it was meant to do equally well. And unlike my snazzy new gelato maker, it is unaffected by rolling blackouts. When my editor heard I was writing about potato ricers, he groaned. What s wrong with a potato masher, he wanted to know.
Life is too short to buy a ricer just for mashed potatoes.
I told him life is too short to eat lumpy mashed potatoes. Some people, in a desperate attempt to smooth the lumps left by the clumsy masher, try beating the potatoes into submission with an electric mixer. The lumps disappear, more or less, but so does any fluffiness the potatoes might have had left. The result is a heavy, gummy mess, not very different from homemade glue or the pasty stuff they serve in school cafeterias. A ricer is also a big help when preparing potatoes for use in recipes.