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Your support makes all the difference.Installed on an outside wall of a barn on a lonely rural back road in northern France is what is surely one of the rarer kinds of vending machines – selling bags of fresh potatoes.
The produce is temptingly displayed behind a thick glass screen: in this case, bag after bag of local potatoes are visible in anything up to 25kg sacks for €6 (£4.30). On the right, a large slot accepts anything from 10c coins up to €20 notes.
On the other wall, a handwritten note informs that the spuds in question are pale yellow-fleshed, have “undeniably appetising qualities” and attractive skins. It also provides advice on cooking strategies – boiled, fried or au gratin.
The reason for such bulk sales near Le Quesnoy could be this part of Northern France’s apparently insatiable appetite for chips – friteries abound, and Belgium, considered the world’s spiritual home for frites, is 20 minutes’ drive away.
If potato vending machines sound odd, there are some other strange ones out there. In the town of Cedar Creek, Texas, for example, they have a vending machine for fresh home-made pecan pie, while in one university in Malaysia, a machine produces free soft drinks in return for emotional, rather than financial, currency: being hugged.
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