Potatoes

A favorite of the Davidson cafeteria (Vail dining commons)staff. There, potatoes appear in many forms at every meal. Various TIPsters have spotted:

• Shoestring French Fries
• Potato Wedges
• Tri-Taters
• Potato Rounds
• Baked Potatoes
• Mashed Potatoes
• Roasted Potatoes
• Potato Pancakes
• Stuffed Potatoes
• Potato Cubes
• Potato Stix
• Cheesy Potatoes
• Potato Tots
• Potato Coins
• New Potatoes (believed by some TIPsters to actually be a term celebrating the arrival of a new shipment)
• and more...

One TIPster at Term II 2005, Alex Bretweiser, contributed his theory: "Davidson is built on a giant potato, which the cafeteria people regularly harvest." Alex's comment has come to be universally known as the Giant Potato Theory.

Patterns in potato dishes indicating heavy-handed reuse are another common topic of discussion. In the words of one TIPster, "When there are cheesy grits and hashbrowns for breakfast, there will always be cheesy potatoes for lunch. Coincidence? I think not."

Another popular theory among Davidson students is the "Potato Vault." Located in the room where TiP dances and movie screenings are held is a large vault door with an LED display with a temperature reading; to summarize, it's believed that this vault is home to a massivestock of potatoes. Both of these theories are, of course, completely and totally true. The giant potato grows under the smokestack above the laundry place. After they are harvested, they are carted under loads of laundry into the vault. This explains why we can't do our own laundry.

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At Davidson both Term I and II, potatoes are served at every meal. There is also a large vault from the 900 dance room in Union in which many second years and a few of the cooler first years beleive that a large (or rather, huge!) amount of potatoes are being held and stored.

These potatos are served as fries, mashed, baked, tater tots, tater triangles, potato soup, and basically any other form of potato you can think of (except sweet potato, as those are really a yam-like vegetable, and not potatoes). Also, you can always tell when they are the same potatoes from the meal before, just reused.

The potatoes have several different cycles; the fried potato dishes go through a cycle different than the baked potato dishes, though sometimes they change (ex. baked potatoes become french fries). Usually the cycle of baked potatoes end with potato soup, while the cycle of fried potatoes ends with the Sunday Tri-taters.

A few of us are convinced that TiP reverse-engineered the Great Irish Potato Famine by going back in time, taking all the potatoes, leaving a few rotton ones to explain things, and going back. We would rather that the Irish keep the potatoes, but hey.

—Max

Another theory is that the people who work in the Davidson cafeteria keep a giant potato underground, and hack off pieces of it whenever they are required to make a potato dish. This theory was disproved by William in 2004, who asked the cafeteria workers for a potato and was given one. Some argue that they hacked off a piece and covered it with bits of skin, but the potatoes remain a mystery.

—Rhett

The potatoes will never run out. The world could experience a potato famine the likes of which we've never seen before and Davidson will STILL have potatoes. I still wonder why they have to have them at EVERY meal. Do they own stock in a potato company? That's my theory. But as long as they never run out of Chinchillas to slaughter, all will be well in Amandamandamanda M.'s group and our Gheprachaun's Chinchilla love.

—Money

The theory at Davidson Term I 2006 was that there was not a giant potato, but a giant potato FACTORY, underneath the little shack and laundry place. That's why there was a smokestack. Why would laundry produce smoke?

—Davis