Before too long, we should be able to purchase locally a line of “crisps” — potato chips imported from a fictional place in a very real location.
A company in Manchester, England, makes some very unusual snacks at what it calls Ten Acre Village. Those of us with dietary preferences and/or the desire to eat more healthily will appreciate its offerings.
What we recognize as traditional potato chip bags — 1.4-ounce lunchbox size, a 5-ouncer for sharing or more serious individual nibbling — carry the names of different flavors in smallish print, since they are really too long for the space. Try The Day Sweet & Sour Became Friends, or When Hickory Got BBQ’D.
The company’s inspired and inspiring first flavor, How Chick’n Soup Saved the Day, and all the others, fulfill its kosher promise. A Village spokesman hastens to reassure us: “At Ten Acre, our Chick’n Soup crisps are made BY chickens, not FROM chickens!”
Moreover, not just kosher, but parve, and also labeled gluten-free, dairy-free, vegetarian and vegan. Plus every bag carries the NGMO designation. Folks concerned with more esoteric matters may think these letters stand for New Gravity Map of the Oceans, but definitely not. In today’s foodie parlance, they indicate that the marked product uses only Non-Genetically Modified Organisms in its manufacture.
Have we covered all bases yet? Not quite! In a truly ecumenical reach-out, these chips are also halal — approved for Muslim consumption. I don’t know who certifies that, but all the bags are prominently marked with the most important OU for us.
Word of all this comes from Vicki Garfinkel Jacubovic, the lucky publicist who gets to have all this new fun. She introduces Jimmy, Ronen and Tony Goodman, the company’s founders, as CTO, CFO and CEO: Chief Tasting Officer, Chief Frying Officer and Chief Eating Officer.
You think the British have no sense of humor? Think again! Tony says Ten Acre Village is “fun and whimsical … meant for children of all ages, especially the ‘grown-ups.’”
So we’re all being invited to visit this imaginary world, browse in its virtual bookshop, and see how popcorn is made at Popperley House. (I can’t vouch for the fact that Ten Acre’s reported best-seller, The Amazing Adventures of Salt and Vinegar, is a real book, but I am assured that real popcorn — handpicked at Popcorn Orchards in the Village, of course, if you want to believe that! — is already selling well in England, and will soon be available here in the States as well.)
More seriously, the company has issued the following true statement: “It’s actually a love of storytelling that brought about Ten Acre. We want to bring front and center the fun of storytelling, and encourage story-writing competitions. We currently have a literacy campaign in the UK, in partnership with the National Literacy Trust.”
That should make us feel virtuous as we chomp on the Chick’n Soup crisps, inspired by the belief that chicken soup is really Jewish penicillin. Because of that, the full name of this first in the Village flavor lineup is How Chick’n Soup Saved the Day. That’s what we’ll be seeing in smallish letters on its bags, also marked with a Union Jack as are the previously mentioned flavors, plus a couple of others including a surefire thirst inducer, The Secret of Mr. Salt.
Ten Acre Village’s “hand-cooked crisps” are now being distributed throughout the U.S. by Kayco/Kedem Foods of Bayonne, New Jersey. Those distinctive bags are already moving into kosher and gourmet stores at retail prices of $1 to $1.29 for a small one, $2.99 to $3.99 for the larger. I haven’t encountered any yet, but I’ll be looking — at Tom Thumb, Central Market, and all their other kosher and gourmet cousins in the DFW area. If you see them before I do, please let me know Even my worst day could be saved by some Chick’n Soup!
