So, my wife is deep-frying tater tots for supper. She picks up the basic, and the tots have lost cohesion, and we have a deep fryer full of potato shreds.
We more or less ended up with deep fried hash browns.
But, the question in the household is - how the hell did that happen?
I’ll guess these tots had acquired a lot of ice crystals over time in the freezer.
That’s a solid possibility. Our freezers aren’t exactly what you would call organized. Things go in, migrate to the back and eventually return to the front at unknown intervals - so they could have been in there a long time (open, even (although closed with a twist tie)).
Tater tots can do some strange things. Someone I know told me that he’d seen a tater tot on fire, even after it had been tossed into a sink full of water. (This was a while ago, and he’s a fellow Doper, so if I’ve got the story wrong, he’ll post.)
I have experienced this [del]phenomenon[/del] tragedy and you are definitely correct in my excperience. It only happens to heat shocked tots (thawed and refrozen) or freezer burnt tots.