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This Thanksgiving, let me share an old family recipe with you. 1/
No, it's not deep fried turkey, it's something far weirder ...
Rosin potatoes! 2/
Rosin potatoes! 2/
It is what it sounds like: potatoes slow-cooked by boiling in pine pitch. 3/
The raw stuff looks like this -- what you would use on your hands at bat, or rub on your violin bow. 4/
It's expensive to buy in the quantity you need, but you can re-use it. Here's what it looks like after it's been used a few times, still cold and hardened to glass. 5/
You will never use the pot again for anything else. 6/
The recipe comes from the storied 1950s Miami restaurant, Black Caesar's Forge, a favorite haunt of my parents. 7/
Black Caesar's forge was an open-air steak house, with open fires for grilling aged meat, and the special delicacy was potatoes slow cooked in pine pitch. 8/
The (more than a little racist) menu art from the restaurant is still a collector's item. 9/
My parents stole the recipe, and cooking the dish at home was a fixture of my childhood. 10/
Enjoying a glass of ten-year-old homemade mead while the rosin melts. 11/
There we go. 
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Next up. 14/
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This is the tricky bit. Splashing this stuff is bad news. Geennnnntly! 16/
Nice. 17/
When I was a kid we used to do this in a cast iron pot suspended by a chain over charcoal. Insanely dangerous. 18/
Almost impossible to control the heat, and a boilover would mean a huge fire that was about as easy to put out as a burning oil well... 19/
Propane is still hella dangerous, but much easier to control... 20/
The pirate Black Caesar himself is something of a mystery. 21/
Some say he was an African prince who escaped a slave ship and went into piracy with some of his former captors. 22/
Some say he was a Jamaican freedom fighter. 23/
He is believed to have fought with Toussaint in the war of Independence from France in 1804. 24/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Caesar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Caesar
But all the stories end the same way, with Caesar raiding merchant ships from the mangrove swamps of Florida. 25/
He was known for having a huge iron ring anchored to the coral, which he used to heel his ship over in Port to conceal the masts. 26/
OK more mead. 27/
You have questions. Like, how do you know when they're done? 28/
Here's the trick: the spuds will initially sink to the bottom, and then float as they cook. You leave them in for 20 minutes after they float. 29/
So how do you ... get them out? 30/
Easy. Paper lunch bags. Drop 'em in ...
... and wrap 'em up. 32/
I wish I could tweet the smell, which is intense. 33/
To serve, cut straight through the paper...
... and scoop it out. 35/
The flavor is rich and moist, with a hint of retsina. 36/
Happy Thanksgiving! 37/37
