Transcript of “Jo-Jo Potatoes, Those Fried Delights You Miss Once You Know Them”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, my name is Pat McCrory, and I live in Muncie, Indiana, but I’m originally from Akron, Ohio.
And I was calling to talk to you guys about, to ask you guys about JoJo’s.
JoJo’s?
Yeah, where I grew up in Akron, Ohio, and most places where you could get like chicken wings or pizza, they have a side dish that’s known as JoJo’s.
It’s kind of like seasoned potato wedges, fried potato wedges.
I’ve lived here in central Indiana for 20 some years now.
And after, I don’t know, five years or so, I thought, you know, I’d like to buy some JoJo’s.
And I realized JoJo’s aren’t a thing that anyone knows about here in central Indiana.
So when I heard your radio show, I thought, I wonder if they would know about the origin and how far JoJo spread besides Akron, Ohio, if they knew anything about JoJo.
Yeah, JoJo potatoes, J-O-J-O.
Yeah, I could do with some of those right now.
I mean, you were describing them as they’re sort of like dipped in seasoned batter, right?
And then fried up?
I believe they’re seasoned and fried.
It’s been 20 years since I’ve had a good JoJo.
So are they the same as home fries to you?
You know, when I think of home fries, I think more of like cubed fried or roasted or maybe pan fried.
But maybe some people call them that.
Yeah, well, Pat, there is a story behind this name JoJo, and we’re usually spelling it J-O-J-O.
And it has to do with the company that originally produced them, which was the Flavor Crisp Company, that was known for its seasoned coatings and marinades for frying up chicken and frying up fish.
And we know about this story because of a wonderful researcher named Barry Poppik, and you can see a lot of his work online at BarryPoppik.com.
Several years ago, Barry Poppik reached out to a guy at the Flavacrisp company named Brad French, and Brad French told him the story of how back in the early 1960s, there was a restaurant trade show in Chicago.
And so there were representatives of the Flavor Crisp Company there.
And they were frying up chicken and fish as samples to give out to people.
And in between frying the batches of chicken and frying the batches of fish, they would throw in a bunch of potatoes into the fat to sort of cleanse the flavor.
And at the time, the sales representatives just thought of them as junk potatoes.
Some of them called them junk potatoes, and they just threw them out.
But one day, somebody put the potatoes on the table alongside the free fried chicken, and people didn’t know any better.
They started picking them up and eating them and saying, oh, this is great.
What do you call these?
And the sales reps were like, well, we can’t call them junk potatoes.
So somebody apparently just blurted out, oh, they’re JoJo potatoes.
And that name stuck.
And now you can find them mainly in the northern United States, a few other places.
Yeah, Ohio, Utah, the Pacific Northwest.
It’s places where the restaurants did business with that company.
They’re the ones that picked up the idea of JoJo potatoes.
But apparently not Muncie.
No, apparently not Muncie.
I haven’t seen it anywhere in Indiana.
I’ve been outside.
I haven’t only been to Muncie for the last 20 years, but I haven’t noticed JoJo’s other places.
So that’s interesting to know that they’re elsewhere.
Yeah, if you look in the newspapers, just suddenly in 1962, restaurants start advertising JoJo potatoes.
And they first start in Utah and Ohio.
And then they start spreading, and you start to see them in these other states.
Then it’s all about who did business with that one company.
Isn’t that interesting?
Interesting.
Yeah, that is great.
Thank you for explaining that.
They sound like a very indulgent treat.
I get why that food item is kind of connected to comfort and home for you.
Yeah.
Sure, yeah.
Well, it’s related to home, to Akron, Ohio for me.
Well, it sounds like you’ve got an opening for a business opportunity there in Muncie.
There you go.
Oh, yeah.
That’s a great idea.
All right. Thank you.
Take care of yourself.
Okay. Thanks, Pat.
Bye-bye.
Bye.
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