Talk:Hash browns

Arbitrary heading
Should 'Homefries' really redirect here? Where I come from (Boston, MA), homefries and hash browns are two different dishes. - Rikoshi 11:12, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Good question... Where I'm from, they're awfully similar. Depending on how different they are in Boston, the two articles might end up getting merged in the end anyway. ~ Topaz ♪ ♫  ∆ 11:16, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I live in Southern California. My understanding is that hash browns are potatoes (and sometimes onions or other inclusions) that are cooked into a cohesive mass, but don't need a binder.  Homefries are larger pieces that don't end up stuck together.  JDZeff (talk) 19:11, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Home fries pictures
Since this article is about hash browns, the main (and so far, only) picture on the page should not be one of home fries (which, as I note above, are different dishes in at least some parts of the U.S.). Also, the food item in question was most certainly not French fries.

Perhaps a seperate article on home fries should be created? Rikoshi 23:03, 6 January 2006 (UTC)


 * They are similar enough (and, in some areas, the names are equivalent) that it would probably end up as the same article.


 * However, you're right about the photos. Pictures of various styles of hashbrowns/homefries should be on this page (the deep-fried McDonald's things, shredded potatoes, and diced potatoes).  I'll see what I can do (although hash browns are rare in rural NH).  -- Kaszeta 13:22, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Why is there a picture of tater tots?? Those aren't hashbrowns... T-1 14:40, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

I hate to say it, but that is a very unappetizing picture of hash browns. I wish I had a better one to post.
 * All the more so because of the huge hair being cooked into it (bottom of the picture). SMTBSI (talk) 06:48, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

I notice the current picture is the same picture used for potato pancakes. While it's a minor issue, especially as I can't tell which the picture is actually of, one of them is inaccurate. ---D--- (talk) 06:22, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

"In parts of the UK, hash browns can mean fried left over mashed potato"
Where in the UK is this? I've never heard of that before so maybe need a citation. Hash Browns as I know them are fried shredded potato, fried left over mash is part of bubble and squeak but never hash browns —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zarcadia (talk • contribs) 08:42, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Picture is of a latke
The picture is of a latke which the article seems to indicate is a 'potato pancake' rather than a hash brown. --Irrevenant [ talk ] 10:59, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

UK naming
I grew up in northwest England in the '50s & early '60s and I recall with some fondness fried leftover mashed potatoes served up the following day, but they were never referred to as "hash browns" or anything similar - just "fried potatoes".

I didn't meet the term "hash brown" until I first travelled to the US in the '80s and thereafter when they became available in the UK.

I have never met the terms "home fries" or "country fries" in the rural UK, although I would quite expect to see the terms used in metropolitan areas due to the US influence. I first met the term when I worked in California in the early '90s.

The generic term "fries" is also an import to UK culture as we always referred to fried chipped potatoes as "chips", or scallops when the potato was sliced instead of chipped. I first heard the term "fries" at McDonalds, as I suspect did most Brits, where the term referred to a finely-chipped deep fried potato known to us via the French/Belgian term "pommes frites".

We now have in the UK a cross-cultural and cross-generational mish-mash (pun intended) of terms to refer to various prepared potato dishes, eg:


 * "chips" - the original deep fried chipped potato OR crisps (US import)
 * "fries" - "pommes frites" a la McDonalds OR (now) anything potato that is fried (US import)

I know there are more but I don't have the information to hand right now.

Mike Maughan (talk) 10:04, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Rosti and corned beef
The second paragraph in the history section seems to imply that rosti incoporates corned beef, leftovers, meat or vegetables, which it doesn't, rosti is just potatoes. It then goes on to say that this meal is referred to as hash or bubble and squeak in the UK, which rosti is not at all. This entire paragraph is a bit of a mess, it feels as though there is a sentence missing, or more clarification is required. 94.1.175.96 (talk) 22:16, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Tater Tots are like Hash Browns?
Since when have "Tater Tots" been alike or likened to "Hash Browns"? Other then them having Potato, one is soft inside and hashed browns, in the name should say to you about the texture, its semi solid potato shaped to form a patty, they might add ingredients like tato tots to help cooking or flavour or whatnot but this doesn't make them the same. Thy are closer to Potato Smilies, Alphabet Potato shapes made popular by McCains and Birds Eye. Marccran (talk) 02:28, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Tater tots are quite similar to, say, a McDonald's hash brown patty. Made of finely diced potatoes formed into a shape and fried to a crisp brown on the outside. I wouldn't call them dissimilar at all. oknazevad (talk) 22:30, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

External links modified
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Soviet Union
"The term "hash brown" was first coined as a single unit of hash browns mass produced for consumption by the Soviet Union during the cold war as a 'meal ready to eat'"

Can't quite find a source for this - only mentions from a cursory google bring up articles copy pasting Wikipedia's claim. No mention of the Soviet origin of the name on the Russian wiki either, and the citation following the claim predates the cold war. I'd love it to be true, but just can't verify a somewhat surprising (given the Anglo-American origins) claim to the name.

Gohumanity (talk) 13:12, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

Why are they triangular in shape
An explanation is needed as to where their distinctive shape came from. 92.11.139.9 (talk) 10:34, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Lead paragraph is false
Hash browns come in many forms but I have NEVER once seen them in long thin strips. Never. To claim this is the ONLY form they take, in the lead paragraph, is insane. 24.224.187.119 (talk) 23:38, 5 May 2024 (UTC)