The Fairland Collective spend a two week residency collecting stories and culinary savoir faire around the islands best known export, the Jersey Royal, investigating the history, cultural assimilation and ownership of a vegetable, while exploring new methods of presentation.

How does anyone own a potato?

The Jersey Royal – ‘the best potato in the world’ – is the only vegetable in the United Kingdom to have a PDO Status (Protected Designation of Origin). The wording around PDO products and ‘national treasures’ is loaded and affects the way we perceive certain products and their place within national identity. Does it affect the way we taste them too?

The Fairland Collective will examine how language, narrative and presentation affect our relationship with ingredients and products. There are an estimated 5,000 types of potato in the world – 4,000 in the Andes alone – how do we quantify the best one? Considering taste as ‘the dissolving of the object into the subject’ (Borthwick) – can we become part-potato?

Research is collated through a series of ‘Potato Connoisseur’ evenings in private homes across the island and an open studio at the Jersey Museum & Art Gallery. What is the relationship between the potato and its growers/eaters and how has this changed over time? Research is translated into printed matter and acts as a springboard to develop ideas for a new branded product that showcases these rich complex narratives.

The Jersey Royal Connoisseurs is developed in collaboration with street food entrepreneurs, cooks, growers, holders of family recipes and anyone that loves to eat Jersey Royals. It is supported by Jersey Heritage, the Association of Jersey Charities and the Channel Islands Lottery.