North Fork and Wicked Good potato chips
A food review by Amy Halloran
I want the origins of some foods to remain mysterious. Oreos and Girl Scout Cookies, for instance, should look like they fell into a package straight from Mars. Any explanation is going to look like a lie, or at the very least, distract me from the task at hand. You are a cookie. I am a person. Don’t talk, just let me eat you.
Chips are kind of in that realm, too. But I don’t feel the need to look so far in the other direction because there is less mystery about potatoes and oil than the ingredients and processes that add up to Oreos.
Besides, I love potato chips. When I worked in restaurants I snacked on them with ketchup, like a dipping sauce. Nothing matches them aside, or even inside, a sandwich. If I don’t have any in the cupboard, lunch feels somewhat lacking.
Generally I buy Cape Cod chips or Kettle Chips, and I am happy to see that there are New York State alternatives. Not just because I LOVE NY, but patriotism does help.
North Fork Potato Chips are from Long Island. Wicked Good Potato Chips are from Columbia County. Both are made in small batches, and have a lot of crunch and flavor.
Upstaters trying to imagine farming on Long Island get squinty and dubious, but the island has a big agricultural history, and believe it or not, present. North Fork Potato Chips are produced on a farm by Martin and Carol Sidor. Making the chips is the secret to their success as a third generation potato farm. Aside from the particular real estate pressures of Long Island, consolidations have affected potato production, making it difficult to earn money just from the crop. Adding value to the potatoes they grow makes the farm work.
North Fork Potato Chips wow a lot of big names like Rachel Ray. Fitness Magazine gave their healthy food award to the Rosemary & Garlic Chips last year. My family staff of taste tasters agreed with the magazine staffer on the chips’ flavor: so big that it’s tough to eat too many of them.
Still, we managed, my two sons and husband and I, to make pretty good work of the bags we devoured on a road trip. These chips need absolutely no ketchup, not even the plain ones. They are cut thicker than average chips, and kettle cooked in sunflower oil.
Compared to other flavored chips, there is a shocking amount of seasoning. Almost like a powdered frosting. I really liked the salt and vinegar chips, and the BBQ flavor too.
Wicked Good Potato Chips are from Ghent, much closer to my home. Chris and Bert Jones sell their chips at farmers markets and elsewhere – markets in the Berkshires, Brooklyn and Columbia County. Their two varieties – sweet potato and regular potato – earned their name because eaters, likely from Massachusetts, declared them Wicked Good.
Bert makes these chips in the Red Barn, the couple’s restaurant since 2001. While the restaurant took a year off to focus on catering in 2011, it opened for weekends last summer, and will open for weekends starting May 10th.
The potato chips are an echo of the Red Barn’s most popular appetizer. Hot chips with warm garlic and parsley were a big hit with customers. The couple thought of making potato chips on a trip to Spain, inspired by a street vendor’s fresh chips, which sold better than proverbial hotcakes.
This is a thin chip, and quite easy to eat right up. This summer, they’ll be adding another variety, a chili or curry flavor whose seasonings are still in the works. Whatever they come up with, I’m sure it will be pretty nice.
About Amy Halloran
Amy Halloran writes about food and agriculture, and is especially interested in the revival of regional grain systems in the Northeast. She also blogs at amyhalloran.com and FromScratchClub.com, and archives her work at amyhalloran.net.