There was a restaurant in Chattanooga that served the best resin baked potatoes. It tasted like honey and I think they rolled it in sea salt too.

Anyone know how you get resin (what tree) how to buy or make a substitute. Does anyone make these at home?

-- Ann Markson (tngreenacres@hotmail.com), March 21, 2002

Answers

Joy of Cooking has the recipe and directions. Seems like they tell where to get the resin too. It looked like it'd be a big production so I've never tried it.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), March 21, 2002.

worked for the resturant. It was purified pine rosin and then heated in a vat. Potatoes were actually boiled in the vat for an hour. No salt was used in the process. Had to stop because of the creasote in the rosin.

-- dee (tedanddee@msn.com), March 21, 2002.

Wow--what was that restaurant anyway? Something with "back porch"? Thanks so much! Wonder if there is an alternative to getting that taste but not the effort (smearing with honey ?)

-- Ann Markson (tngreenacres@hotmail.com), March 21, 2002.

As a kid we went on coon (snipe) hunts; the potatoes were cooked in rosin of loblolly or slash pines in a Dutch oven, when they floated they were done. Those, coupled with PBR beer, diced onion and corn meal to make hush puppies were a passage into life; anything less would have been called pizza, keish, or tufu or other swear words.

-- mitch hearn (moopups@citlink.net), March 21, 2002.

Mitch: When you went coon huntin' as we say here in TN--did you take the rosin with you with your other food? Or did you slash the trees and get the rosin right where you camped? What is PBR beer. All I can think of is peanut butter beer but that doesn't make sense:)

And these potatoes--were they not baked after boiled in rosin?

-- Ann Markson (tngreenacres@hotmail.com), March 21, 2002.

Ann, PBR is Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. Good beer only when there is nothing else available!

Hic!

-- Martin Longseth (paquebot@merr.com), March 21, 2002.

Cracker Barrell restaurants used to have rosin baked potatoes and they were excellent but it's been years since they've had them. They used plain old pine rosin to "fry" them in.

......Alan.

-- Alan (athagan@atlantic.net), March 21, 2002.

We brought it with us ready to go, Martin, that was the best we could do at age 14!!?!

-- mitch hearn (moopups@citlink.net), March 21, 2002.

Guess now you know I'm a teetotaler:)

-- Ann Markson (tngreenacres@hotmail.com), March 21, 2002.

Here's a quick recipe I found, though haven't tried it. I have never eaten these. You all have me intrigued by them.

COLUMN: CULINARY CORNER: By Ed Kane

"Dear Chef Kane: I had dinner at the Canal Street Grille in The Orleans last week and I had a baked potato that was wrapped in brown paper. It was called resin baked potato on the menu. I would really love to know how to bake that. I'm 84 years old so don't get out too much. So if you can get this for me I would be eternally grateful to you.

Dear Edna: These potatoes are a real treat. I have had the pleasure of eating them a few times. The only other place I have ever seen them served was years ago at the Flamingo Hilton in a great restaurant called the Speak-Easy. These potatoes are indeed a lot of work. But, it is doable at home. The first thing you will need is a pot that you will never use for anything again other than the resin potatoes. The potatoes are called baked but they are actually fried. Fill the pot with the resin chips, allowing enough room for the potatoes. Heat the resin to 350 degrees. Carefully place the washed potatoes in the hot resin. A 10- ounce potato will be done in about 40 minutes; a 6-ounce potato in about 20 minutes. It would be safer to use a basket of some type to lower the potatoes in and to pull them out with. Executive chef Christopher Johns was nice enough to share the address where The Orleans purchases its resin. It is J&R Manufacturing Inc., 820 W. Kearney, Suite B, P.O. Box 850522, Mesquite, Texas, 75185-0522. Another method I like, and I won't profess that it is as good as the resin style, is the bacon fat method. Save your bacon fat when you cook bacon. It will keep in the refrigerator for a long time. Next time you make baked potatoes, coat them with the fat. Bake in a 400- degree oven for one hour. Check the doneness by giving them a little squeeze. When they are soft to the touch they are done. Then give them another coat of bacon fat."

-- Anne (HealthyTouch101@wildmail.com), March 22, 2002.

When I was a pup the terpintine industry used pine sap as an ingrediant. The pine trees were debarked for about 1/4th of the circumferance at waist level. Chevron shaped chops were made in the tree with the "V" downward, a spout was installed at the bottom from which hung a collection bucket. Thats where we got the rosin.

-- mitch hearn (moopups@citlink.net), March 22, 2002.

Hi Ann!

You can buy blocks of rosin in music stores. It is what is put on violin bows. I used to buy it and grate it an mix it with rubbing alcohol to make flux for soldering projects. Don't know if there is such a thing as a food-grade rosin/resin. Maybe cross referencing to pine pitch would help. Did the potatos you have have a pine flavor? Somehow I don't think pine flavored potatos would be that good! Don't know if this helps or confuses the issue more! Darlene

-- Darlene in W WA (tomdarsavy@cs.com), March 23, 2002.