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A lush makeover for the Irish potato
It is a small-potatoes world, ripe for big dreams, and this year-her fifth child
finally off to school - Jodi Boylan figures its her time.
On a counter in her Mayfair kitchen, she shows me her work product, dusted
with cinnamon, lined up in regimental formation: sweet, coconut cream Irish
potatoes.
They are styled on Philadelphia signature truffles, bites of folk
ingenuity commemorating St. Patrick's Day, as fittingly humble as a French-style
truffle is rich. But these guys have some polish.
What Jodi Boylan has done is created a hybrid variety, adding dark chocolate and
milk chocolate and mint chocolate and white chocolate covered pieces to the
ranks of cinnamon-coated regulars
They are plumper and glossier than the
classics that, with her posse of 30 women from the Ladies Ancient Order of
Hibernians, Boylan has rolled since 1998 in a catering hall above a Chinese
restaurant on Frankford Avenue.
Those are sold to underwrite scholarships for Catholic high school girls.
These are her own babies - extraordinarily lush, prettier and creamier (from the
cream cheese, butter and coconut - flake filling) than your less expensive,
chain store Irish Potato.
Whether they are so gussied up as to still qualify as members of the clan is
another question.
And so is how likely to succeed in the Irish Potato sweepstakes. But let us
consider that later.
Time moves on. The Strawbridge's name may soon exit the vocabulary.
An Applebee's is tied up to replace a Bookbinders' iconic seafood house at 15th
and Locust.
As a stock of touchstones that define Philadelphia shrinks, to encounter an
unexpected survivor is all the sweeter. (Did you know that there is still one
place in Kensington that makes those lime, hard candy St. Patrick's snakes? It
is Blasius Chocolate factory, 1849 E. Venango St, 215-743-1999. Smalls go for 75
cents.)
Against the tide, though, the Irish potato has stood with particular defiance.
It is as solidly Philadelphian as molded sugar-candy Christmas clear toys,
spared (or limited) from wide export because its shelf life is short: The
cinnamon coat lets in parching air.
It has a short window of opportunity as well, boxed between Valentine's Day and
the on rush of Easter and its crop of coconut cream eggs.
The trick for potato makers (and Jodi Boylan now fits firmly in the tradition)
has been to try to beat the odds - to extend the product life or to extend the
season.
Harry Young, an old school candy maker at 28th and Girard, tried to get a
head start once, making potato before Valentine's Day. He quit trying after a
stack of his heart shaped boxes got ruined by flying cinnamon dust.
David Lamparelli, who launched Oh Ryan's supermarket brand 18 years ago near
Marcus Hook, shrink wrapped his boxes and added fats to make the potatoes year -
round sellers. Today, 99 percent of his sales remain - as they should be between
January and March 17.
He is thinking of cashing in on a foul up, though: Last year, a hurried
assistant dumped banana flavor, instead of coconut oil, into 300 pounds of
filling dough. This year Lamparelli is test - marketing the fruit of that
mistake -- a chocolate - dipped, banana - flavored "Tropical Treat."
He sees it as a head against competing Asher's, whose similar boxes and price
points give him a run for his money.
Jodi Boylan has first hand the potency of the Irish Potato.
The first year her lady Hibernians took them on as a fundraiser, they made a
hundred boxes. The candy sold out in days.
A couple of years later they upped it to 500 boxes. Same thing. Then 1,000. They
are still moving like hot cakes.
Her fancier, chocolate - dipped potatoes were for family and friends at first:
But this year, with all the kids in school, she down to business.
She signed off with the city licensing boards. She went to candy shows to find
supplies. (She settled on handsome, clear plastic trays.)
She checked the USDA on safe shelf - life issues.
Her husband Denny, a detective with the police dignitary protection detail,
fetches butter and drops off orders.
On occasion, one of the older children helps roll out pieces.
But this is very much Jodi Boylan's big adventure.
And if her potatoes don't quite fit the normal profile, so be it.
Copyright The Philadelphia Inquirer Reprinted by Permission.
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