Way back in the day, when I lived in the dorms at Seattle Pacific University, I went through a variety of "phases" with food. Top ramen, frozen burritos, 7-11 foods... and then potatoes. I was amazed to find that I could buy a huge-ass bag of potatoes for really cheap. Poke a few holes and throw it in the microwave, and you've got a "baked" potato.
Now, we all know that nobody eats baked potatoes because they like potatoes. People eat baked potatoes because they are an excellent material to hold up a variety of delectable condiments that would be gross and/or socially unacceptable to eat by themselves. I soon found that it was these condiments that prevented potatoes from being "the cheapest" food to eat.
I picked up a total of six ingredients to sprinkle/pour/douse my potatoes with: salt (actually I stole this from BJ), pepper (also stolen from BJ), butter, sour cream, bacon bits (which turned out to actually be soy bits flavored as bacon...), and Sweet Baby Ray's Barbecue Sauce.
The Sweet Baby Ray sauce received the most comments from my peers. Specifically, "Gross!" "Yuck!" and "That's disgusting." Little did they know (I attended a conference once on "Little Did He Know"...) that Sweet Baby Ray's was actually the savior of baked potatoes.
However, no matter how delicious, no human being can eat an entire five-pound bag of potatoes by themselves before the potatoes begin budding. Also, Sweet Baby Ray ran out before the potatoes did.
