After Two Years In Minnesota, I Just Learned About Jo Jo’s

I was yesterday days old when I learned something new about Minnesota food. I was broadcasting on location at Gate City Bank in Elk River, which is inside the Coborn’s location there. I decided to grab something to eat and took advantage of the lunch deal with Chicken Tenders. 

I thought the meal came with “Jo Jo’s” Cole Slaw. I was assuming a sweet little old lady in the kitchen named “JoJo” who made the slaw from scratch. But as I was placing the order, I realized that “JoJo’s” is a menu item, and I just agreed to include them on my lunch plate. I was a little too embarrassed to ask what “Jo Jo’s” were. 

I quickly realized that the clerk was talking about potato wedges, or as we call them in my home state of North Carolina, “tater wedges”. And that’s no exaggeration; southerners do use the term tater quite often. 

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I tried to slink away from the deli area without tipping my hand of being confused by this new term I had just learned. The first thing I did when I got back to my computer was to Google search “Do Minnesotan’s call potato wedges Jo Jo’s?”. 

The answer was Yes! The term is very much Mid-Western, according to Professor Google, but I learned that there are distinct differences between “tater wedges” and “Jo Jo’s”.  

Jo Jo’s are specifically only served with Chicken. So, it’s basically in the name meaning a potato wedge that is on the plate with chicken. “Jo Jo’s” are breaded and seasoned before they are fried.  

There is another difference according to the Google machine between the two types of “taters”. “Jo Jo’s” are breaded where a potato wedge can just have seasoning on it but no breading.  

I have a goal to learn at least one new thing each day, and yesterday it was the difference between “Jo Jo’s” and “tater wedges”.  I’m feeling a little more Minnesotan as each day goes by. And I can’t wait to order “Jo Jo’s” the next time I’m in North Carolina.