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  • At my house, no Thanksgiving dinner

  • is complete without mathed potatoes.

  • To make mathed potatoes, start by boiling the potatoes

  • until they're soft, which will take about 15 to 20 minutes.

  • After you drain them and let them cool slightly,

  • you're ready for the math.

  • Take one potato and divide evenly

  • to get half a potato, plus half a potato.

  • Then divide the halves into fourths and the fourths

  • into eights and so on.

  • Eventually, you will have a completely mathed potato

  • that looks like this.

  • Once you have proven this result for one potato,

  • you can apply it to other potatoes

  • without going through the entire process.

  • That's how math works.

  • While I prefer refined and precise methods

  • for mathing a potato, many people

  • just apply brute force algorithms.

  • You can also add other variables like butter, cream, garlic,

  • salt, and pepper.

  • Place in a hemisphere and garnish

  • with an organic hyperbolic plane,

  • and your math potatoes are ready for the table.

  • Together with a cranberry cylinder and a nice basket

  • of bread spheres with butter prism,

  • you'll be well on your way to creating

  • a delicious and engaging Thanksgiving meal.

  • Here's a serving tip.

  • When arranging mathed potatoes on your plate,

  • it is important to do it in a way that holds gravy.

  • If you just make a mound, the gravy will fall off.

  • It's best to create some kind of trough or pool.

  • But what shape will maximize the amount of gravy it can hold?

  • Due to the structural properties of mathed potatoes,

  • this can essentially be reduced to a two-dimensional gravy pool

  • problem, where you want the most gravy

  • area given a certain potato perimeter.

  • When I think of this question, I like

  • to think about inflating shapes.

  • Say you inflated a triangle.

  • It would add more area and round out into a circle.

  • And then, if the perimeter can't change, it would pop.

  • In fact, all 2D shapes inflate into circles.

  • And in 3D, it's spheres, which is my bubbles like to be round.

  • And turkeys are spheroid, because that

  • optimizes for maximum stuffing.

  • The limited three-dimensional capacity of mathed potatoes

  • may confuse things a little.

  • But since a mathed potato sphere can't support itself,

  • you're really stuck with extrusions of 2D shapes.

  • So what's better?

  • A deep mathed potato cylinder or a shallow but wider one?

  • Well, think of it like this.

  • If you slice the deep version in half,

  • you'll see it has equivalent gravy-holding capacity to two

  • separate shallow cylinders.

  • And the perimeter of two circles would

  • be more efficient if combined into one bigger circle.

  • So the solution is to create the biggest, roundest,

  • shallowest gravy pool you can.

  • In fact, maybe you should just skip the mathed potatoes

  • and get a bowl.

  • Anyway, I hope this simple recipe

  • helps you have an optimal Thanksgiving experience.

  • Advanced chef-amaticians may wish

  • to try Banach-Tarski potatoes, wherein

  • after you cut a potato in a particular way,

  • you put the pieces back together and get two potatoes.

  • Stay tuned for more delicious and extremely practical

  • Thanksgiving recipes this week.

At my house, no Thanksgiving dinner

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