My Mum’s ‘Tater Ash’ (potato hash)

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Family Feed Guest Recipes

From its conception, we knew that Family Feed was here to help a community of families find meal time inspiration. We wanted to tell stories and cook real food. This can’t be done without featuring the food of my wonderful Mum, Valda.

She is the very essence of a mother: a kind, loving, generous woman who has been feeding a family for a very long time. She taught me everything I know. This is a longer post than usual, in fact, I could write a book about cooking with my Mum. But I will start with one recipe: Tater Ash.

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The Food of the Autumn

This is, as my Mum puts it, a really affordable way of feeding a family. Tater Ash seems to have lots of variations, and I find no two families cook it the same. If you’re not from the north of England then you might not know what it is. Think, a delicious bowl of stew but with potatoes that fall and thicken the gravy. Onions that melt to nothing and carrots deeply flavoured by the long, slow cook. Some people use corned beef, which makes this meal cheaper still. But we always use stewing steak to make ours.

My Mum has her own secret ingredients for Tater Ash – she adds ketchup and HP sauce right at the end. I didn’t discover this until adulthood and was surprised when Mum shared it with me. Strange as it sounds it works… it really works!

A family favourite

This is the food we ate, in the Autumn/Winter throughout our childhood. Mum still cooks it now and delivers it to our houses on a cold, dark night – Jim absolutely loves it! Mum also makes veggie versions for my sisters so everyone can take part in the tradition. To make the veggie version all we do is remove the meat, swap the beef stock for veg stock, add the leaves of 3-5 sprigs of fresh thyme, add 2 leeks, finely sliced and follow the method and quantities for everything else in the recipe below.

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My Mum’s Tater Ash is famous within our network of family and friends. I think it’s because she makes it with such love and she sticks to the tried and tested recipe – Usually I am all too quick to try to change and add new touches to recipes… but somethings are just perfect as they are.

Crowd pleasing food

Friends and family would often request this dish when we were growing up. When we make tater ash we tend to have it two nights on the run. The first night with a pie crust and the second night as a bowl of hot Tater Ash served with beetroot, crusty bread and butter… I’m salivating just writing that sentence.

Supply and demand

This recipe is so good that my Dad used to take a pie into work for his mates, on their request. In our late teens, me and my sisters had weekend jobs as lifeguards. Mum would bring our dinner to work and everyone always wanted in on the feast if it was tater ash pie. As if she didn’t have enough mouths to feed. In fact, I’ve never met anyone who had my Mum’s Tater Ash and didn’t ask for seconds.

Bonfire Night

The most precious memories I have of Tater Ash Pie is from Bonfire nights/weekends. From being a really small child I always remember this being the food we ate on bonfire night. We would always take a huge pie with us to bonfire night celebrations at friends and family’s houses. Everyone was pleased to see us usher the pie into the house in all its comforting glory.

Cold nights, hot food

There is something deeply satisfying about eating a bowl of hot tater ash as you come in from the burst of fireworks and the crisp cold night. I can remember like it was yesterday the pleasure that this time of year brought to me as a child. The sense of wonder at the night sky lighting up with sparkles and crackles. The smell of burning wood, discarded sparklers and late-night fun with family and friends.

My bonfire night memories involve eating treacle toffee, scoffing hotdogs and tater ash and in more recent years enjoying a steaming hot mug of mulled cider. Stories of Guy Fawkes and the majesty of the bonfire make the night seem mystical. It’s a magical time of year and for me, it references the coming of winter which I love. This year we had a little lockdown bonfire night celebration in the garden with a fire pit, marshmallows for toasting, fireworks, sparklers and my mulled cider – recipe coming later this month.

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Where it all began

To know anything about my Mum you have to understand the environment she was brought up in. When we were cooking this recipe I wanted to know about its origins. My Mum is one of six siblings and the youngest of the girls. She was raised on a council estate in the 1950s to devoted and incredibly loving parents Betty and George. Her parents were grafters and providers – the family was number one. It’s no surprise that my Mum approaches life with the same outlook. She puts the family at the heart of everything she does. Love leads all of her choices.

Hardship and graft

My grandad, grew up very poor. He remembered all too well the feeling of hunger as he walked to school with no shoes on his feet and an empty stomach. I remember hearing about this as a small child and struggling to comprehend that reality from the comfort of my flashing trainers and with a full belly. His life was focused around his children and in the early days, my Mum told me how he would try to divide his portion of food between the six kids – even though they all had the same.

This would cause my Nana to get frustrated at him, especially because they always ensured the children ate the same as they did and my Grandad was working a hard manual job. “They’re growing and need it more than me” he would say in response to my Nanas frustration. This is the man who at points cycled 60 mile round trips to work at Shell when the car was off the road. A huge sacrifice and commitment, providing for his young, growing family.

A raw cabbage at the side of the road

I’ll never forget my Grandad telling me of one occasion after a shift at work and a long journey home he got off his bike and stumbled into a farmers field, collapsed and ate a raw cabbage to give him the energy to continue cycling home. To this day I am filled with disbelief and pride in his strength and sacrifice. A reminder of the hardship he faced in giving his family the best from limited resources.

Tater ash through the generations

Mum said that her Mum cooked Tater Ash for the family – it was a no brainer for a big family. Filling, tasty and affordable. My Mum’s Nin (her grandmother) cooked Tater Ash for her family and this recipe derived from my Mums great grandmother – Willamina. She was said to be famous, locally, for her own version of this. So we presume that her Scottish heritage and husband’s Irish heritage are responsible for our family’s version of Tater Ash. We also presume that we come from a long line of people who loved to cook for their community.

Learning to cook

My Mum learned to cook when she was a young adult. She was 22 and my nana was poorly with her first lot of cancer. Being the youngest of the girls my Mum hadn’t needed to cook before this. But she saw the need to step up as her Mum retreated to recover. My Mum had watched her cook and picked it up from that exposure, she remembers Tater Ash being one of the first meals she tried.

My Mum went on to become a great cook and has been involved in feeding people on film shoots, family gatherings, parties and working in the kitchen at our primary school alongside her lovely friend Tina. They would feed the children fresh, homemade, locally sourced produce all year round and every Christmas they would pull out all the stops for the school’s Christmas lunch where they would feed 500 people delicious and lovingly made food. My Mum and Tina found common ground in the kitchen because they both care about the details and doing things properly, with good ethics and a lot of fun along the way. It all showed in the results and you could taste the love in their food.

Cooking with speed

Mum tells me that Nana had her out of the kitchen as soon as she was fit to be back in action. My Nana was known for speed – I mean you would have to be with six mouths to feed. Apparently she could get a Sunday roast for all the family (which at times could be for 15+) on within 45 minutes. Impressive work. I am somewhere between my Mum and Nana when it comes to speed. My Mum has a very fluid relationship with time – something I wish I could learn from at times. But her Mum was on the ball and stood no messing. My memories of my Nana are of warmth, safety, family and knitting. Sadly she passed when I was 7 and her memory has become more distant with time. But her legacy lives on in her family and in the food we all cook and share.

Mum’s kitchen

It always amazes me to think that my Mum didn’t learn to cook in childhood. Growing up her food and kitchen defined my own approach to cooking. She always cooks with generosity and cares for details. Feeding others is what she is known for. Our kitchen was never quiet. There was always something cooking, baking and always people to feed. We ate well and we were taught to cook in a very hands-on way as children.

A family-first approach

Growing up my parent’s house was a hive of activity. I don’t have many memories of my Mum sitting down. She stood, she worked, she cooked and she helped out friends and family along the way. Mum has always wanted to bring people together, along with my Dad. They have the same family-first values that my grandparents did.

My Mum helped our elderly neighbours, took our cousins and friends in for a weekend at a time, picked other kids up from school and took them to afterschool activities when their parents couldn’t. She supported the dreams of my Dad and us three girls, loyal and loving. To this day she puts everyone before herself. I feel blessed that my own children can absorb her love and cooking. Being at her table is a special experience. Cooking with my Mum is my happy place. We do things differently but we care about the same values and the table and family is where our love grows. I really hope you get the opportunity to cook this tater ash recipe. It’s the most comforting and reliable meal I know. I will teach my children how to make this and hope that they carry it on into their future.

Tater Ash in times of uncertainty

Tater Ash is a simple, basic and very affordable dish. We never make a little pan of it, it’s all about the leftovers. It’s always better to make more and freeze what you don’t eat ready for a rainy day or top it with a pie crust for another night.

As we head into a month of lockdown, as budgets are tight and we all look to find a way to make money stretch I can’t think of a more worthy meal to share with you than this dish. Thank you to my Mum for sharing this recipe and continuing to feed her family with love and generosity.