Baking soda in the cooking water: the Amish technique for ultra-crispy potatoes

An Amish lady from a farmers’ market revealed an ancestral cooking tip for achieving perfectly crispy roasted potatoes. This simple technique, passed down through generations, radically transforms the texture of the tubers. The secret lies neither in exotic ingredients nor in complex methods, but in a particular understanding of the potato that guarantees a result that is crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside.

At the farmers’ market, between the stalls of freshly picked vegetables…