Chipster Diaries

Krunchers! Sweet Hawaiian Onion Kettle Cooked Potato Chips

2012-06-18T08:43:00.000-07:00

What on Earth - or should I say, “what in the Pacific Ocean”- is a Sweet Hawaiian Onion? As it turns out the Krunchers brand isn’t inventing a mythical pineapple-flavored onion, but rather is referring to the ‘Maui Onion’- so called because the best ones are grown off the side of a goddamned volcano in Maui called Mount Haleakala, and how much more awesome could something be than that?

Despite it's volcano-loving
proclivities, the Maui onion can be
grown in a home garden.

That sinister red volcanic soil produces small onions with unusually low amounts of sulfer and high amounts of water- resulting in a vegetable extra juicy and sweet as a mob mistress. In fact, these exemplary onions are recommended for raw-eating, which makes me want to one up Johny appleseed by munching away on Maui onions and planting them on every field I can find. (Ok, to be fair, the Georgia-grown Vidalia onion is also similar in taste and consistency.)

According to Hawaian folklore, the demigod Maui's
grandma lives in the crater on Mt. Haleakala, and
one spring day she might yet pour a tide of liquid
hot magma death instead of onions down the
slopes of her awesomely named home.

So, has Kruncher’s really made specifically ‘Maui onion’ chips? Well, unfortunately, I can’t tell for sure. To their credit, ‘onion powder’ is nearly at the top of the ingredient list, but no details as to whether it’s Hawaiian onion powder (maybe it is, but I certainly can’t tell!), and the rest of the list is all chemicals of one variety or another with the exception of a hint of garlic powder. The seasoning does taste mildly sweet, and mercifully light on salt (unlike many other otherwise tasty onion-flavored products). Some might find themselves wanting to ramp up the sweetness or saltiness dial, but the principle shortcoming is unfortunately much more serious.

One of the few flavors I don't
want to taste in my food.

That relatively mild sweet onion flavor is completely overpowered by the oil that crisps have been cooked in. These otherwise impressive kettle-cooked chips have been thoroughly soaked in a (non-trans fat) corn oil that reeks of the sort of cooking oil usually poured on a skillet. While some may feel that the rough oil brings an authentic touch, it may simply be that it is too authentic, and overpowers the flavoring by far.

An excellent image of Krunchers chips
courtesy of realfitmama. Note that
they don't have visible seasoning.

This is truly tragic, because in most other regards the texture and potato crisps are really first class kick-ass. The blonde potato rounds are extra thick (up to 2 millimeters!) , twisted and rumpled in beautifully complex shapes, and wonderfully crunchy in an organically uneven sort of way. As you munch away at them, you can even feel the (too-strong) oils seeping coolly out of the saturated crisps onto the tongue. (I should note that the nutritional information shows these chips to be no more unhealthy than an average bag of Lay’s potato chips- and these are gluten free!)

Ultimately, the over-saturation of the cooking oil flavor and the comparative weakness of the seasoning leaves me feeling that these chips didn’t quite carry the day- Maui onion flavor is a neat concept, but the seasoning is too subtle and the cooking oil is as a discrete as She-Hulk before the red moon. The amazing quality of the potato round does leave me intrigued about trying other Kruncher’s products; perhaps if I swiped some actual Maui onions and mixed them together I'd get the complete experience.

She Hulk making a subtle
entrance.

Stars: 2/4

Spiciness Rating: None

Pros:

- Incredibly thick and crunchy kettle cooked potato rounds impress with their class and texture

- Inoffensive and light sweet onion flavoring is pleasant and avoids the excessive saltiness common in the genre

Cons:

- Super-excessive corn-oil flavoring oversaturates the chips and overpowers the seasonin

- Many will find themselves wishing for a sweet and possibly slightly-saltier onion seasoning

- It’s unclear that the seasoning is really very ‘Hawaiian’

Ballreich’s Marcelled Smokey Sweet Mesquite Potato Chips

2012-06-05T10:02:00.000-07:00

One of the most rewarding aspects of writing this blog is all the opportunities to expand my knowledge and vocabulary. When I was sitting down to write this review and trying to decide in which order to write the title for the review (as the presentation on the package, ‘Sweet Mesquite Smokey Ballreich’s Marcelled Potato Chips’, didn’t quite flow to my satisfaction), I suddenly realized I had no idea what ‘Marcelled’ meant. Well, I had a suspicion, so off I went to Google.

Hair style invented in France in 1872
by Francois Marcel.

Of course, Marcell refers to a “hairstyle characterized by deep regular waves made by a heated curling iron.” That would describe a large portion of the do’s on the swarms of ladies walking outside my apartment, coming to avail themselves to Paris’s premier African hair salon district. But it also refers to Ruffled chips with wider and deeper trenches in between each ruffle than usual. Think, wide as a ridge-cut French fries!

I wasn't exagerating about where I live- every one of those is either a hair
salon or a wig vendor. I regularly walk on shed diva
hair every morning. Ah, Paris!

Needless to say, Ballreich’s chips are precisely of this variety, and all the more charming for it. Each of the blonde potato chips is large and fairly thick, but in a soft-crunch rather than hard-cracking way. The long, lazy waves on the chip’s surface happily channel the tongue to lap up the flavored goods, which are admittedly intriguing.

Note the marcelled waves. A guy found
God in his potato chip bag, because
what else could possily explain a random
cross shaped hole and Jesus fish shaped
burn in a potato chip? With only a gazillion
chips out there, certainly not probability.

Ballreich’s Mesquite chips reminded me of the sweet molasses flavoring of Grippo’s Barbecue chips, which is high praise considering my stunned enjoyment of that product. However, Ballreich’s chips emphasize a different, saltier aroma, albeit with equal verve and intensity- the chips appeared to be cooked in, or seasoned, with shortening, aka, lard, and the pervasive salty-fat taste makes the chips taste as if they were fried on a salt pan full of rib-meat and bacon drippings. (The ingredients list clarifies that the chips are cooked in ‘soybean shortening’, but like many other products derived from the protein substitute, it definitely proves convincing!) That the shortening is soaked inside the chips, rather than applied on top, makes it all the more pervasive,

Molasses, it must be admitted, looks
suspiciously like the alien ichor in
Promtheus. Maybe that's why it never
quite caught on as much as honey...

The downside of the flavoring is that it does bring the chips heavily on the salty side, and some may feel the evocation of lard on the grill is a little disturbing. (For what it’s worth, the chips have an average number of calories, but an above average number coming from fat.) The seasoning does, nonetheless, deliver the entirety of the barbecue experience, with mesquite spices (but not hot spices), a general smoky aroma, and those sweet molasses notes (the ingredients list includes molasses, onion, garlic, and paprika powder.)

Let's admit it, lard can be
disturbing...

Overall, I appreciated the unique stylings of these crisps, from their lovely marcelled soft-crunch potato slices, the soaked-to-the-bones shortening flavor, and the lovely notes of sweet molasses. However, the other aspects of the barbecue flavoring are little further in the background than I would have liked- more spice and more sugar would have been a plus- and the saltiness and the fatty-tasting sensation has downsides as a chip flavoring. As long as you can suppress the instinctive guilt at eating something which really tastes like it’s been soaked in salty, delicious fat, you may still find Ballreich’s fashionably-cut crisps worth giving a try.

Stars: 3/4

Spiciness Rating: Very Mild

Pros:

- Remarkable lard-shortening flavor pervades the foundations of each crisp

- Large marcelled chips with a crumbly soft crunch are pleasure to munch

- Sweet molasses notes in the seasoning distinguish these from regular barbecue chips

Cons:

- At times a little too salty, and the sweeter aspects of the barbecue seasoning get a short shrift

- The shortening flavor may possibly be a turn off for some

Crusticroc Snack Balls Jalapeño-Cheddar

2012-05-08T07:52:00.001-07:00

After immense difficulty
I finally found a website
with a pic of the bag
titled Sack Balls .

I’m juvenile enough to find any junk food called ‘snack balls’ automatically hilarious, and of course, detailing that they are made out of spicy cheese is an open invitation to sophisticated humor of the South Park variety. The Buck Rogers style retro Sci-Fi title adds a delightful kitsch factor to what I can only anticipate to be yet another mediocre product from discount snack-food producer Crusti Croc (a store brand of Lidl.)

If every episode of South Park featured
mutant laser-spear toting sea otters
mounted on ostriches in the ruins of
NYC, I would become a regular viewer.

But nein, the canny German proletariat-feeders at Lidl have in fact formulated an eccentric work of mad (though by no means refined) genius, not unlike their well-documented plot to raise a zombie army to win World War II. The Corn-Puff Balls are extra-large- about an inch in diameter each- are satisfyingly lumpy and crunchy, and feature a reasonable amount of chewy inner density to make for a snack which floods the mouth with pleasing flavor.

Agent Blaskowicz's escape from Castle
Wolfenstein played a critical role
in the defeat of the Nazi Zombietruppen.

Now the seasoning itself is no way ‘life-like’ or ‘sophisticated’, and yet is ‘powerful spicy’, as they say in Gone with the Wind, and quite effectively infused with jalapeño. Unlike far too many other snack foods, there is no lack of flavor, and an extra salty, super-picante experience awaits your mouth for each crackling snack ball you suck into your saliva-gushing maw like a Tyranid Mawloc.

Mawlocs may not mouth off as much as
your teenage son or a Sandworm of Arrakis
but their gullets do seem to moistly slaver
more gratuitously. Painted by C-Bomb13.

Unfortunately, the flavor-sensation is rather marred by an undeniable degree of over-saltiness, and fondness for drinking salt water may be a prerequisite for extended eating of these cash-concession corn-puff confections. The saltiness also rather obscures the cheese flavoring, but overall I found this shortcoming of the Snack Balls rather tolerable when weighed against the lightning those joy-spheres were packing, and recommend them as a flavorful though crass diversion for a night’s entertainment.

Of course one could actually make real
jalapeño cheese balls if one wanted to
as pictured from this recipe by Kooksfood.

Stars: 2½/4

Spiciness Rating: Hot

Pros:

- Nice extra-large corn-puff balls are thick and crunchy

- Flavorful and spicy

Cons:

- Salty balls are too salty

Route 11 Mama Zuma’s Revenge Habanero Potato Chips

2012-05-02T10:31:00.000-07:00

Image courtesy of JunkFoodGuy
who has a very comprehensive
analysis of the packaging.

Let's be honest, for some books or movies the cover or poster alone is worth the price of admission, so ridiculously awesome (or awesomely ridiculous) that whatever follows can only at best complament the outrages insinuated. How could this not be the case for Mama Zuma’s chips- the word ‘epic’ was misappropriated by pop culture for this very reason!

Zuma is dripping with crackling allure and a take-no-prisoners mystique, draped in a hot pepper bandolier and a revolutionary flag somewhat incongruously bearing a corporate logo rather than an anarchist slogan. The back of the package explains that Zuma lost the love of her life in a ‘bizarre and tragic potato peeler accident’, which rather evokes Spock's attempt to con the New York police (see 0:43) by claiming his ears were the result of an encounter with a mechanical rice picker. Now Zuma is “hell bent on burning every mouth she kisses with her special brand of passion”. I can already see the Direct to DVD script writing itself, replete with explosions and catfights. Machete, watch out, you have a competitor!

I SO want to see this movie. Very slightly adapted
from Ludolf Backhuy's original oil paintaing...

As much as Route 11 may come off as being full on themselves with their “Warning: These chips are made with some of the hottest peppers on the planet” labels and assorted spicy food braggadocio, Zuma chips prove she’s no girly Sailor Moon and fully deserves her reputation for fiery badassitude. These chips are exceptionally hot and spicy, and manage to pack in about as much flavor as possible on a chip thats set about burning away your taste buds from the get go. Your mouth is Atlanta, and the chips are Sherman.

Sherman left Atlanta 100% more burnt
down than when he arrived, though
at least he didn't leave the population
inside while indulging his pyromania.

I’ve already discussed Jalapeno peppers in previous posts, but Habanero peppers are their more elite, more rarely encountered cousins: small, perfectly innocent-looking orange peppers that just happen to be one the most intensely spicy naturally-born peppers on the face of the earth. Literally. Habaneros also have their own distinct flavor from Jalapenos, (sweeter and less bitter overall), but they are so burning hot that one rarely is afforded much of a chance to notice it.

Habaneros look so dainty and cute for
something that can leave you writhing
in pain. The Red Savina Habanero was
claimed to be the hottest pepper on
Earth, but that title has been claimed
later by others such as the Ghost Chili,
Naga Viper and the Trinidad Scorpion
among other names on what appears to
be a team of superheroes.

Let me be honest, just like you may feel the English Patient is a lovely movie but you wouldn’t recommend it for kids, Zuma’s chips are only going to be appropriate for two types of people: those who enjoy extremely spicy flavors, or those who enjoy a genuine test of their endurance. Snack-eaters with a more limited capacity for setting a raging firestorm in your gills would be wise to stay away- every individual chip eaten alone packs a terrifying punch, and three or so in succession will leave a prolonged burn in your throat.

Though it does look like Count Lazlo
(Ralph Fiennes) may also have a turbulent
history with Mama Zuma as well...

The crisps themselves are quite small- ranging between 1 inch and 1.5 inches in diameter on average- though this is not really a great flaw because the individual chips are so densely packed with spices and flavor that more would be counterproductive and possibly dangerous for your mouth. They are beautifully kettle-cooked, with a bubbly and crunchy texture, and slathered with thick orange seasonings.

This excellent photo courtesy
of Aleta fom the Omnomicon,
who actually offers a recipe of
baked chicken breasts covered
in Zuma's Revenge chips.

I hinted earlier that extremely spicy foods can limit the extent to which other flavors can be appreciated, and there is no doubt that the powerful habanero spices in Zuma’s Revenge predominate over the other seasonings on these chips. Nonetheless, those subtler flavors are still there to be appreciated- notes of salt and garlic, and a pleasing smoky aroma give a wonderfully sophisticated backdrop for the tongue-stomping in the foreground. Furthermore, the distinct taste of the habanero pepper can be discerned, which is a rewarding surprise in and of itself.

Anyone looking to see how far they are willing to burn themselves for love of spicy sensations is well advised to give Zuma’s Revenge a shake. Here, the incandescent thrills are matched with first-class supporting spices and kettle cooked potato rounds. However, a slower pace of eating is advised, or that fiery fox will burn you to a crisp.

Stars: 3/4

...I wasn't kidding! Although I would
personally be rather afraid to bite into
that delicious looking thing, considering
how spicy those chips are individually.

Spiciness Rating: Flaming Hot

Pros:

- Truly spicy Habanero challenge

-Excellent backdrop flavors of salt, garlic, and pepper

- Beautiful extra-crunchy crisps

Cons:

- Only good for those with a tolerance for intense spice

- The crisps are very small, and should be eaten slowly

Vico’s Saveur Fromage Bleu et Crème

2012-04-26T08:14:00.001-07:00

When I was little, I was fascinated with Roquefort cheese. My parents warned me it might be too intense for me, which naturally heightened my interest, as well as the name, which brought to mind some sort of formidable rocky castle. Fortunately for me, Roquefort is indeed strongly flavorful- though not ‘spicy’, it indeed packs a certain salty punch, wedded to its creamy texture.

Roquefort, the Batman of blue cheeses,
exclusively grown from its very own
mutant bacteria in the moist caves of
the village of Roquefort, France.

Most Americans are familiar with ‘Blue cheese’ from its use in salad dressing and the occasional ritzy hamburger sauce, but of course it has many other applications, (just try it spread llike butter on bread, it’s great!) While we Americans have been quick to dip Buffalo wings in some bleu, I hadn’t really seen blue cheese chips until I found a bag on the store shelves by Vico, and I asked myself, “why did it take so long?” As cheese flavorings are so ubiquitous on the crisps, it’s wonder they took so long to go from cheddar orange to blue- the movie industry has long realized it’s a hot combo.

Vico decided to keep it classy and not use any artificial colorants, which I have to admit is slightly disappointing but probably prudent, so you will be looking at plain blonde-yellow chips upon tearing open the bag. Vico has consistently impressed me with their crisps, and these ones were enormous and full of delicious air bubbles. Staring at the bisected half of one of the chips, I felt I was beholding the desiccated husk of a pint-sized whale, so expansive and bulbous with air bubbles were the chip’s proportions. Like other Vico products, they proved to be extra hard and crunchy.

On second thought, that metaphor may
not be as tasty looking as it sounded...

But what of the flavor? I would characterize it as cunning in its mimickery- yet sadly insufficient. One bite of the blond crisps will unleash the familiar salty aromas of blue cheese- oh yes!- mixed with a milder creamy aroma, but then there is no follow through, the taste does not last. So though the experience is evocative, the flavoring has not been applied in sufficient quantities to make it linger memorably.

Roquefort is not the only French blue
cheese- the above pictured Bleu
d'Auvergne has a butterier texture,
and incorporates rye-bread mold
for a mellower flavor.

Overall, I would still recommend giving these a try because the blue cheese flavor is cool and unique and deserves to be expanded upon; as it was, I was tasting about 2/3 potato chip to 1/3 blue cheese, a proportion which must be improved. Vico should still be commended for shoring up this obvious void in France’s national chip portfolio, and we can only hope they and others will continue to refine the concept to more ambitious and assertive ends. Plus: anyone interested in making some Camembert chips?

Stars: 2½

Spiciness: None

Pros:

- Gets the salty flavor of blue cheese nearly right

- Large crunchy chips with delightfully bulging air bubbles

Cons:

- Flavoring lacking necessary density and intensity, does not dominate over the potato-chip flavor

Lay’s Strong Chili & Lime

2012-04-10T09:04:00.000-07:00

When I saw in a grocery store in Budapest that Lay’s had released Chili & Lime chips, I recognized the brilliance of the concept immediately. Who doesn’t adore a nice wedge of lime with their Corona? (Or less respectably, those lime-flavored beers- I’ll own up to it, someone has to come out and admit it!) This is a flavoring concept that just needs to have its voice heard by the masses, though for now the masses with the opportunity appear to be exclusively speakers of the Slavic or Magyar tongue.

Limes help fight scurvy! But not
as well as lemons. On the other
hand Wikipedia claims that limes
are more sour than lemons, but
science says it's wrong.

As I’ve previously noted, flavorists have recently begun to appreciate the possibilities of making truly tangy chips, and that zest with which they applied themselves here is commendable. No, they haven’t made anything even the least bit tongue-curdling or acidic, (nor would I have condemned such a product if they had)- the packaging proclaims these to be LIME flavored, the sweeter, greener, and mild-mannered cousin of the lemon. Yes, they don’t even have their own name in French (citron vert = ‘green lemon’), but the difference is real. If you’ve ever squirted a wedge of lime onto some salty tortilla chips or into your beer, you’ll recognize the sensation immediately- sweet and tangy cool, without in any way revisiting the Sour Patch Kids experience.

Now, these are supposed to be Chili and Lime chips, but the Chili isn’t so dramatic- basically there’s a pleasantly spicy afterburn as you munch on these that contributes to the picante-Tex Mex vibe, but the heat factor is pretty unthreatening and the actual flavor is really all about the hand-grenade fruit. The crisps themselves are ruffled and about 2 inches in diameter, vaguely orange in color with a decent sprinkling of black pepper. They are thick and fun to sink your teeth into with a crunch not unlike a cave collapsing, and the bag I acquired in Hungary managed to stay fresh and crispy for a surprisingly long time. The package proclaims they are ‘best with cold drinks’, and while this might seem like a cocky bit of macho self-promotion, eating them does indeed create a desire for accompanying beer or soda, and the two do complement each other well.

Though Lay's Chili Lime chips are hard to find,
Des at LifesAmbrosia.com has an awesome
recipe to help you convert plain potato chips
to jalapeno-lime godhood.

In short, I loved these chips and they helped me nostalgically revisit all sorts of tasty Latin/Tex-Mex cooking that is sadly unavailable in Paris. The additionally tragic/ironic aspect to these chips is that they are apparently being sold all throughout Eastern Europe (the packaging is translated in Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Hungarian, Czech, and Slovak!), but I have seen no hint of these delicacies in France, nor am I certain this variety is available in the United States. (I am aware of several Chile and Lime chips by Lay’s available in the United States, but none of them appears to be ruffled. Let me know if I am wrong in the comments!)

Stars: 3½/4 Stars

Spiciness Rating: Moderate

Pros:

- Absolutely nails that tangy-but-mellow sweet-lime on chips flavor

- A pleasant, spicy afterburn

- Wonderfully crunchialicious ruffled crisps

Cons:

- Not especially Chilli flavored

- The spice level is only moderate in intensity

Barcel Takis Nitro Habanaro & Lime Flavored

2012-04-05T02:56:00.001-07:00

It’s my firm belief that anyone biting into the crimson pirouette-cookie look-a-likes known as Takis Nitro will be convinced that their mouth has just been squirted with watermelon bubblegum flavoring. Or something like it- there’s an undeniable and thoroughly bizarre fruit-aroma that falls short of actual sweetness at the first bite that goes way beyond the typical lemon-lime citrus flavor that is implied on the packaging.

A bowl of Takis. Note that
the 'Nitro' variant is actually
a darker crimson in color.

There’s no doubt that Takis Nitro is a very extreme and colorful product, but I’ve actually run into a similar concept in France- basically tortilla chips rolled up like scrolls into tubes resembling pirouette cookies or penne pasta. These actually convey the seasoning effectively and crunch in a most satisfying fashion, and I hope that the idea catches on in the United States. The Takis Nitro variety are also undeniably beautiful, each three-inch corn chip roll thickly covered in eye-pleasing dark crimson seasoning. They couldn’t have looked better if they’d been painted.

The brilliant colors of the Takis rolls promise the extreme flavor and flaming hot appeal of a red race car or shiny-latex seductress, and the Nitro Takis deliver exactly that: extreme sourness and extreme spiciness, served alongside the completely incongruous and altogether strange fruit flavor. The snacks will reliably set your mouth aflame like a control panel on the starship Enterprise and expel the snot from your sinuses if you eat more than a few at a time; I mean that in a good way, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. They are also more sour than a sour patch kid and leave you feeling like you bit into a lime.

The warp drives and phasers are awesome, but
the arcane science behind seat belts appears to
have been lost in Star Trek, and the computer
screens seem to be based on Soviet TV sets.

And yet, despite being an aficionado of the spicy and the sour, these crisps don’t quite succeed in pleasing. The weird fruit-aroma is part of the problem, I think, as it creates an expectation of sweetness that the seasoning doesn’t actually deliver. Chips and salsa/guacamole complement each other well because the saltiness of the chip is combined with the sweetness or sourness of the salsa, but here that sweetness or saltiness is lacking, and the tongue is kind of left hanging limply, though no doubt in part from the beating it just received from the scary habanaro seasoning. Alas, Sour and Spicy without either Sweet or Salty does not a complete flavor make (for me.)

Imagine these, spread out on a chip
without the sugar, and you will know
the flavor of Takis Nitro.

There’s no denying that Barcel concocted a ridiculously over-the-top product with their Takis Nitro, with its uncanny fruit aroma and mouth-scorching habanero and lime flavor. Unfortunately, I can’t say I quite enjoyed it; nevertheless, the experience is strange enough that I found myself frequently curious to try a few more in a fruitless effort to grok its sheer gonzoness. Anyone who appreciates the super spicy or the grotesquely weird should give these a try- you may or may not love them, but you probably won’t forget that they tasted like a spicy watermelons, without the sugar.

Note: These chips are available in Mexico and the United States

Stars: 2 /4

Spiciness Rating: Flaming Hot

Pros:

- Ultra hot and super sour

- No lack of crimson-colored flavoring

- Wrapped nacho scrolls are extra crunchy and beautifully coated with spices

- Weird fruit flavor?

Cons:

- The lack of sugar or salt to tie together the sour and spicy makes these chips feel incomplete

- The sour and spice are too intense for the comfort of many (most?) palettes

- Weird fruit flavor

Tyrrell’s Sea Salt & Cider Vinegar

2012-03-27T10:59:00.000-07:00

Tyrrell’s Sea Salt & Cider Vinegar chips have been staring at me from their lofty perch on the store shelves for months since I installed myself in France, sniffing with disdain at my penny-pinching ways. Each time I glared up at them, my eyes would go red with a mixture of envy and burning class resentment, as befits any proper English story. The aristocratic Eton graduate (ahem, “English Eccentric”) on the cover, smiling drolly into his cup, is no doubt laughing at my peasant-like ways.

A friend of mine, however, possessed the unthinkable fortunes necessary to set a bag out on the gaming table one evening, and I was forced to admit that the Tyrell’s chips every bit deserve their elevated price. It’s as if the nobility were born with magical powers and super-human strength; these chips deserve to rule.

If Christopher Lee were
the Prince of Wales, you can bet
the paparazzi would be afraid to
photograph him dressed up like a
servant of a totalitarian regime.
Hereditary monarchy would be a much
more persuasive political system if
aristocrats were all born more like
Count Dooku.

The bag claims the chips are ‘hand cooked’, and the quality of the slices is so impressive, you can be damn well sure that a line full of orphaned children is carefully slicing them at the conveyor belt while Charles Dickens hovers in the background, taking notes for his next novel. Unlike any other chip I’ve reviewed before, you can still see the brown potato skin rimming each individual round. The crisps are extra-thick (up to 2 millimeters!), complexly shaped, vary from small to medium-large in size, and are utter delight to crunch. The visual appeal is only further magnified by the abundance of salt crystals plainly visible on each slice.

But do you really appreciate them being
"hand cooked" when it's their hands
doing the cooking?

This brings us to the seasoning, which is in a word, magnificent. The English share with Americans a fondness for all things fried and battered, and these chips clearly draw some inspiration from the vinegar accompanying a traditional fish’n’chips ( 'fries' to use the American term). The cider vinegar is sweet and pervasive, but a lot less acrid than other vinegar chips; it is complemented beautifully by the large salty crystals artfully sprinkled across each slice, which manage to deliver a piquantly brackish sea-sting that lingers tantalizingly on the tongue without overwhelming the chips as a whole. (I’m very critical of overly salty chips, but these most definitely cannot be counted among their number.) In other words, you can distinctly taste the potato, the vinegar, and the salt as separate phenomena with each bite, which makes for a delightfully pluralistic eating experience. All the while, the blend of seasoning is carefully balanced between the poles of minimalism and excessive saturation.

Spirit Vinegar: the strongest variety
of vinegar (5-20% acid), traditionally
made out of sugar cane. Also,
possibly, ectoplasm....

The ingredients list is also so politically correct it should run for office: 100% natural ingredients, including 3 varieties of dried vinegar (cider, spirit (?), and malt), sea salt, apple powder, and rosemary extract. But these are Tory chips, make no mistake, and properly represent those segments of the society that feel that the Magna Carta was one step too far towards the proletarian abyss. That’s all right with me, though; chips this good deserve their exaggerated prices, and I must confess I can’t readily think of any American chips which are quite as classy as these- but that’s only proper.

Stars: 4/4

Spiciness Rating: None

Pros:

- Amazing thick-cut kettle cooked crisps that retain their brown potato skins on the edges

- Delightful sweet vinegar flavor which excites the tongue without stinging too much

- Flavorful salt crystals that deliver motes of savory sensation without dominating the flavor

- Natural ingredients, free of Gluten and MSG!

Cons:

- Price?

Vitasia Wasabi Chips

2012-03-14T17:35:00.001-07:00

What follows is a first-encounter-with-Wasabi story, followed by a review. Many people have mixed feelings about Wasabi, the Japanese horse-radish like plant that is often served as paste to accompany sushi. Many lust for its intensly spicy sensation, it’s flamethrower like effect on the nostrils, its exotic mustard-like aroma. But many have been hurt by Wasabi. Badly. So badly, they swear off Wasabi and believe it their mission to shelter all innocents from its piquant embrace. This is a tragedy, but even more terrible is their spreading of these repressive anti-wasabi teachings, thereby preventing others from realizing their own spicy Aspian bliss.

Wasabi plant being converted into Wasabi
paste. A dissapointing fact: most
'wasabi' products (paste, powder, etc.) are
not actually made from wasabi, but rather
a mix of horseradish, mustard powder
and green dye. Like the characters in
the Matrix, we have no idea what reality
tastes like; but at least the approximation
is good...

My history with wasabi began ten years ago, while I was working on a human trafficking internship for the International Rescue Committee in Phoenix, Arizona, and living away from everyone I knew in a small apartment by myself. My mom, being a quintessential mom, sent me packages. The first one that arrived included an assortment of books, baked cookies, and some garishly multi-colored canisters that looked like they should hold tennis balls. But no, they were cans full of Wasabi peas. So eating all by myself in my lonely Phoenix apartment is how I discovered Wasabi- and also played through 80% of Baldur’s Gate II.

They look so innocent...

Wasabi (or more realistically, what we associate as being wasabi- see the caption above) is great- it packs a dry hot burn like a desert khamseen that can really scorch the nostrils if you’re not careful. One of the first things my partner Erin taught me was a trick to avoid the dread eye-watering nose-burn: inhale continuously through the nose after eating, and you shall know no pain. Erin remains a much bigger wasabi fiend than I.

Khamseen: a hot, dry, dusty windstorm
of the sort common in North Africa. See
also: your nostrils after eating a hand full
of wasabi peas...

Considering how long it’s been slathered and sprinkled on other kinds of dried snacks, it’s only fitting that I’ve started coming across some Wasabi potato chips in Western markets- really, the idea should have been popularized way sooner. But leave it to Lidl, the German discount chain, to randomly to acquire some overstocked ‘Asian-Food’-Actually-Made-in-Europe and flood the local store with it. We were not too impressed by the Bami Goreng box on sale by the same company, (too salty), but the Wasabi chips did not disappointment.

Baldur's Gate II : the game that forced you
to resolve catfights between a widowed
druidess looking for a rebound
relationship and an elf circus freak
with flightless wings eager to have
your babies- while dealing with a
politico-religious succession crisis
in an aquatic kingdom of shark men.
Seriously.

The crisps themselves are a pretty green in color, as one would expect, and the flavoring is no more and no less than what you’d expect. They taste absolutely like real wasabi, and inspired me to cram my mouth to get one more blistering hit, but I should note that the burnination was generally under control. The chips are spicy, but less likely to set you on fire inside-out than the Wasabi peas I cut my egg-teeth on, or other Wasabi-related things I have eaten. Overall, this is probably a good thing, but it will disappoint anyone craving the firepower to sterilize their sinuses.

Not enough Burnination to please
Trogdor, for better or worse.
But if you need more,
here's a guide...

The potato slices themselves were kind of unimpressive- standard Lay’s chips that are ultra-thin and not particularly crunchy. They still did their job, but I believe I would have enjoyed them more if the crisps hadn’t been as flimsy as paper cranes in a hurricane. So, I don’t doubt that other manufacturors have gone ahead and formulated Wasabi chips, and if they are at least as good as the ones by Vitasia, I definitely recommend trying them out. The idea is so obvious and intrinsically worthwhile that the product itself doesn’t have to be of super high quality to still provide a welcome surprise fireball cleansing for their taste buds and nose hairs.

Stars: 3/4

Spiciness: Hot

Pros:

- Delivers the classic-Wasabi flavor, just like you’d want it

- Adequate flavoring, adequate heat-

- Chips are as pretty green as leprechaun lasses

Cons:

- Strictly no frills

- Rather weak in texture

Pringles Xtreme Screamin’ Dill Pickle

2012-03-06T09:29:00.000-08:00

There seems to be a remarkable
number of haters out there.
People be like 'I hate pickles
and these chips taste like goddamn
pickles!" and I be pitying the fools...

I’ve always been a fan of vinegar impregnated pygmy cucumbers, aka pickles. However, in my youth I principally ate French cornichons- gherkins averaging only 3 inches in length and soaked in tarragon to produce an extra-crunchy hyper-vinegary experience. The larger American standard, the dill pickle, uses medium sized cucumbers rather than gherkins, resulting in a ‘creamier’ inner texture. Initially, I felt the American pickles were a little weaksauce in comparison to their miniaturized French cousins, but over time I’ve grown quite fond of them as a traditional accompaniment to deli sandwichs, and I’ve discovered not a few varieties that pack their own uniquely garlicky punch.

The French cornichon: about the size
of your pinky, but with twice the amount
of vinegar.

My first encounter with some of Lay’s pickle-chips a few years earlier left me distinctly underwhelmed, so my expectations were guarded but hopeful when my partner returned from Christmas vacation in the United States with a tube of Pringle’s Xtreme ‘Screamin’ Dill Pickle’ chips. In general, I think the Pringles Xtreme line has succeeded in creating the sort of strong flavorings I appreciate, though some of their products have proven more inspired than others.

The American Dill pickle, rather girthy
in the good sort of way. Many of them
are even longer than this too...

Screamin’ Dill Pickle chips, however, proved to be a vinegary torpedo blast completely deserving their hyperventilating title, and I immediately and irrevocably swooned to their considerable charms. The super-sour vinegar flavor pervading each chip never failed to impress with its briny power, and it’s all tied together with an unmistakable aroma of dill seed that powerfully evokes the classic American sandwich spear. I deliver this praise despite having never been a fan of dill seasoning, (spare me the dill havarti!), but here it so perfectly nails the flavor that it leaves me trembling with a thrill of homesick nostalgia.

Koolickles: pickles mixed with Cool-Aid,
apparently all the rage in the American
South, along with pork braised in Coca
Cola and the like. I've never liked sweet
pickles, but I'd be lying if I didn't say
I was curious...

In short, these chips are a delight to eat and an inspired homage to the dill pickle, and I have little trouble recommending them to anybody who appreciates exotic chip flavors, vinegar, or phallic vegetables in a jar. For now, I shall have to content myself with the slightly more piquant charms of French cornichons, (traditionally eaten with paté), but I have these to remind me of the larger (as usual) American variety.

Stars: 3½/4

Spiciness Rating: None

This French recipe involving cornichons
looks completely awesome!

Pros:

- Flavor emulation at its best! Remarkably evocative of actual dill pickles.

- Excellent and powerful sour vinegar flavor

- Exquisitely subtle dill seasoning

Cons:

- As for any Pringle, the quality of the crisps reaches a fairly well established ceiling…

CrustiCroc Soufflee Gout Bacon (Baconsmaak)

2012-01-31T08:01:00.001-08:00

Today we’re back to our favorite (as in only) local German discount food chain, Lidl, and their own take on puffed wheat with bacon. Crusti Croc’s approach can be described as ribbed, not for your pleasure, but in an endearing yet creepy attempt to make the crunchy wheat-puffs display the red and white stripes of a strip of bacon. The effect isn’t entirely visually displeasing, leaving you to imagine a dried out bit of bacon cooked in fat and puffed up like a balloon, but it’s still a little strange eating pieces of wheat that have been dressed up as meat a la Lady Gaga.

Self-objectification raised to a juicy new
height: triump or tragedy? Just don't
ask Carol Adams...

Yes, you heard that correctly, they are made up of 74% wheat, which officially makes them closer to cake batter and breakfast cereal than most other chips out there. Healthwise, they are a little healthier than your average chip, and they do crunch satisfyingly in the mouth and have sufficient density to satisfy, unlike some notably airier and brittle snacks I have had in the past.

In my youth, I was very meticulous about keeping the
syrup strictly on the pancakes. Now, though, I am all
in favor of the syrup tsunami.

What of the flavor? I would say they got the basic salty bacon flavor down right, while including just enough sweetness not to fall into the trap that ensared Bacon flavored Bugles as thoroughly as a hungry Chewbacca in an Ewok trap. It’s still a little salty, and with prolonged eating they might start to taste like generic corn puffs endowed with saline, but with a little smokiness and some sugar, this bacon is closer to that sweet breakfast experience than other flavors out there. In fact the crisps smell very pleasantly sweet and smokey, like a hot fried American breakfast doused in maple syrup just waiting you in the pan.

You had to add all that salt, and
just look at the result...

So though I was very dubious about these bacon-cross-dressing puffs from across the eastern border, I found them entirely pleasing as a light snack, even if they aren’t remarkably sophisticated, and the disturbing meat-stripes may grown on you over time.

Stars: 2 ½

Spiciness Rating: None

Pros:

- Reasonably charming smoky bacon flavor

-Adequate density for a puffed wheat snack

Cons:

- Flavoring is not too complex and may bug the salt averse

Herr’s Baby Back Ribs Chips

2012-01-23T04:13:00.000-08:00

While my childhood was spent happily wolfing down large pork spare ribs in true American style, (something I have waxed enthusiastically about in earlier posts), in my later years I have come to favor “baby back ribs”, also known as Canadian ribs. Contrary to what you might expect, baby back ribs do not come from actual babies, (no, not even Canadian babies), but are instead selected from the loin end of market weight hogs (as opposed to the usual sows). Whereas a spare rib measures 6 to 8 inches in length (15 to 20 centimeters), baby back ribs measure from 3 to 6 inches (7.5 to 15cms), with a more favorable proportion of meat to gristle and bone.

Ripping the best bits of meat off spare ribs can
be an exhausting and gruesome task. This wolf
could probably use more sauce while she's at it...

Not only will feminists be happy to see male flesh commodified for a change, but anybody who has sunk their teeth into a spare rib knows it can take a bit of gnawing and worrying to yank off the choice bits; however, baby back ribs take away all the gnashing of teeth and give you pure tender meat that literally falls off the bone to melt in your salivating mouth.

Baby back ribs, a bandolier of tasty hot meat
ready to shoot off in your mouth.

Did I mention that baby back ribs make for far more manageable eating portions? Another side benefit is that the barbecue sauce tends to marinate the baby back ribs more thoroughly, as more of the meat and less of the bone is exposed. Try ordering a half-rack of baby back at a quality rib house such as Rocklands in Glover Park, Washington DC and you may well come to agree that a more saucy and delicious (and messy) all American meal has yet to be invented.

So, I happened to be visiting a friend in Annapolis during my Christmas vacation when I noticed a bag of ‘Herr’s Babyback Rib Potato Chips’ on sale at the local Graul’s market, and immediately knew I had to test this claim. Would I really be able to distinguish the length of the rib bone simply by sampling the seasoning of the chips?

Image courtesy of Junk Food Betty, who agrees
that while they may not actually be meat
flavored they are pretty damn tasty!
Note the wide channels between the ruffles.

The answer is “No”, to be brutally honest. These are not ‘meat’ flavored barbecue chips, they are ‘barbecue sauce’ flavored, exhibiting the traditional mélange of sweat, salty, and smoky. Yet for all that, they were both original in flavor and utterly delicious.

The Baby Back Rib chips actually reminded me of Ballreich’s Smoky Marcelled Sweet Mesquite Barbecue chips- like that product, these are thick-cut ruffled chips with wide channels in between the ruffles and a sweet molasses barbecue flavor that is highly distinct from most other barbecue seasonings out there. Whereas the Ballreich’s product emphasizes a sort of greasy lard-flavoring, Herr’s product instead offers strong elements of garlic and hot spices, upping the flavor ante for a pleasingly piquant and surprisingly complex flavor. The seasoning is thickly and evenly applied on all the chips, coloring them a pretty orange color, and the sliced ruffled potato rounds are a delightfully thick cut, with a soft crunch which allow you to slowly sink your teeth in and savor their disintegrating grandeur.

So, score another victory for the Pennsylvanian chip industry; though these chips may not actually be ‘Baby Back” flavored per se, they are ‘amazingly delicious molasses barbecue with garlic and hot pepper” flavored instead, with super awesome ruffled potato slices to boot. I’ll call that an amazing victory for my mouth any day, and my friends and I continued to savor the spoils of conquest for the 48 hours the full sized bag had chips left to offer, despite their failure to taste specifically like the soft derriere of a male pig.

Stars: 3½/4

Spiciness Rating: Moderate

Pros:

- Marcelled ruffled potato slices with a slow soft crunch that’s hard to surpass

- Unique molasses-barbecue flavoring that brings an original taste to a genre too full of generic imitators

- Wonderful supporting elements of spicy paprika, pepper, garlic, and smoke

Cons:

- Not actually ‘meat flavored’ or discernibly ‘baby back’

Note: Taquitos.net reports in its rather positive reivew that this product has been discontinued, but they were in stock in mid-December 2011 and the Herr's web site still shows them as being available.

Lay’s Limited Edition Patatje Joppie (Joppie Sauce Chips)

2012-01-19T06:39:00.000-08:00

The Dutch eat their fries with mayonnaise. This was something I learned in a tiny restaurant called Amsterdam Falafel, located in the hip bar-lined Adams Morgan district of Washington DC. In addition to having the best variety of falafel toppings and sauces we have so far seen anywhere, (though I would later discover that the many falafel vendors in Paris’s rue des Rosiers still made better falafel balls), they make excellent fries which are accompanied with little cups of ketchup and mayonnaise. Now, I have never been a fan of mayonnaise, and always request that it be omitted from any burger or sandwiches I plan to eat, yet the mayonnaise that accompanied the fries was a little thinner than the snot-like consistency of a jar of Hellmans, and was infused with an enjoyable lemon aroma.

When I finally had the opportunity to visit Amsterdam in December of 2012, I learned that the Dutch actually appreciate a whole variety of sauces accompanying their fries, which they buy from sidewalk vendors served in a paper cone with an enormous dollop of thick sauce in the corner and a cute little plastic fork to eat with and mitigate the inevitable sauce drippage. The fries were large, hot, and delightfully crispy, and I was happy to try out several sauces.

Yes, there are fries underneath the sauce...the
yellowish glob on the right is the Joppiesause.

The traditional lemony-mayonnaise proved fun as ever, but on the recommendation of one of the vendors, I also tried something called ‘Joppisause. This thick pale-yellow sauce proved to be a unique local hybrid of mayonnaise, yellow American-style mustard, onions, and curry for a tasty flavor that exceeds the delights of its constituent components. Developed by a cafeteria owner named Joppie, the sauce has become popularized across Low Country-wide in the early 2000s, and I would definitely put it on any visitor’s culinary checklist.

You can imagine my delight when I discovered that Lay’s had released Joppiesause flavored potato chips in a unique Dutch special edition, and immediately snatched a bag for analysis. It was decorated in a black and yellow pattern that immediately brought to mind the “XXX for Dummies” series of books that was so popular during the 90s, but the product inside was well calibrated to the taste of connoisseurs in my estimation.

They have one for everything
these days...(Just read the fine print)

I found that the folks at Lay’s had captured with perfect accuracy what makes Joppiesause so ingenius- the way that the piquant flavors of mustard seed, onion, and curry spices blend with mild mayonnaise resulting to result in a smooth and creamy flavor. Well after the visit, the chips so perfectly evoked the sauce that I’m now on the look out for a Dutch fry shop where I can obtain more of it!

The potato slices themselves are large and crunchy, about as good as can be expected of anything that’s not kettle cooked, with wide gently sloping surface largely free of air bubble or visible seasoning. (Though normally an advocate of complex textures, I was not bothered by the absence of bubbles, and in general I found the chips' broad expanses crunchy and pleasing.) So, in short, I advise any visitor’s in Holland to first try Joppiesaus, then try the chips. Whether you want to serve yourself baked with your fries is up to you.

Stars: 3½/4

Spiciness Rating: Very Mild

Pros:

- Perfectly evokes the unique Dutch sauce’s blend of mayonnaise, mustard, onion, and curry

- Large above-average quality potato rounds

Cons:

- Hard to find outside of Holland

- Nothing to please the spice addicted or texture-fanatics

Chio Exxtra Chips Tejszines Mediterran Fuszeres

2011-12-05T08:35:00.000-08:00

I was only able to translate two words in title of these ruffled chips- Meditteranean and Seasoning- and I'm not sure what ‘Tejszines’ means. However I can pretty much confirm that these ruffled potato chips are meant to emulate a Meditteranean yogurt/cream and parsley sauce, probably along the lines of Greek tzatziki sauce. If you have perchance eaten a Gyro, you will recall favorably the white yogurt sauce with flecks of green parsley that is liberallyed soaked upon the hot hybrid lamb-and-beef meat.

Some thicker tzatziki sauces include
juicy thin chunks of cucumber.

Bottom line, the sauce is yummy and yogurty-sour; though basically uncomplicated, and often infused with garlic, lemon, and salt for extra punch. I was charmed by the idea of chips flavored along those lines, and found that Chio’s rendition in the seasoning to be clever and evocative. You can clearly taste both the mildly sour-creamy aspects of the sauce as well as herbal flashes of parsley and oregano.

The tzatziki seasoning is effectively lathered upon ruffled chips which proved to be thick but not crunchy- they exhibited a more pliable ‘soft-styrofoam’ texture which, though not nearly as bad as it sounds, will disappoint anyone who values voluminous crackle-crunch sounds in their eating experience. The crisps also proved to be amazingly large- one of the chips we found was so long it can only be described as pornographic.

Not a photoshop. That was at least
5 inches long- the chip, I mean.

These chips are part of the ‘Exxtra’ product line, but though I liked the seasoning, I did not find that it was boldly applied- they could probably have doubled the quantity and it would have tasted just right. Starting with a flavoring that’s already going to be intrinsically mild (yogurt sauce with parsley) and I think it’s hard to justify the ‘Exxtra’ title, about as appropriate as a documentary “Badass Xtreme style English Gardening.”

"We put the extreme carnage back into
traditional gardening!"

The mildness aside, however, I enjoyed the unique flavor they were going for and the satisfying size and thickness of the ruffled crisps, and they proved a delightful supplement to an evening picnic in a Budapest park.

Stars: 2½

Spiciness Rating: None

Pros:

- Evocative and unique flavoring

Cons:

- Could use more seasoning; does not merit the ‘Exxtra’ label

- Some may be dismayed by the low crunch-factor

Vico Chips a l’Ancienne saveur Vinaigre à l'Echalote

2011-12-03T07:37:00.000-08:00

My experience writing reviews for Vico chips is that they are cursed: the reviews, not the chips. I stared at the shiny, over-priced bags in stores for a long time before I finally caved in (and found them at a cheaper price), and then wrote two reviews full of praise and love and yearnings for world peace. Then the computer failed to wake up from sleep (sadly normal) and the Autosave messed up (maddeningly abnormal) and I was left with no evidence of that heady, intense fling.

Yet, along came Vico’s Shallot Vinegar chips to reawaken my passion. Vico, it must be emphasized, is a special beast- nearly all the other chips I review from French stores are either made by Lay’s or are store brands, but Vico’s appears to be an actual independent French chip company from Picardie with a long and proud tradition of potato based products which do appear to merit their higher prices by virtue of having pretty damn good crunch and texture.

However, it's the flavoring here that shatters frontiers by offering what other chip-makers have lacked the courage and foresight to do: bring vinegar and onion together, at last, like a soap opera coupling you began rooting for five seasons ago. The vinegar aspect is well done and effectively balanced, each chip evoking a tangy acidity of vinegar without going overboard into Sour Patch kids territory. More interesting, however, is the echalot (shallot) flavoring, which in its subtlety, wafts breezily onto the tongue like the effervescently glowing presence of an onion-y willow wisp.

"We are truly benevolent energy beings
from a land of light and pure good. Come
closer and- what? Oh, never mind the
skull. It just fits in with the decor.
We live in a swamp, y'know?"

Yes, we are talking about shallot, an elongated variety of onion with a sweeter and milder flavor which Wikipedia insists is also “richer andmore complex.” Think of shallots as the posh and classy diplomats of the onion family (they’re very pleasant when cooked in a wine sauce and eaten whole alongside seared steak), rather than the ‘roll ‘em over and make ‘em cry’ types that we more commonly encounter (and love in our own masochistic way). Intriguingly, there is also shallot vinegar, which is sweet and mellow, and not nearly as onion-y as you might think it is. As a result, the shallot flavoring on the chips is pleasingly musty and sweet without the acrid overtones we associated with regular onions.

Most of the Vico chips I’ve tried have been baked with an extra thick and crunchy ruffled texture, but these chips proved to be thin, relatively small potato slices. They demonstrated a slightly greater degree of crunchiness than the average Lay’s chips, but were still cut a little too finely for my taste- an extra quarter of a millimeter can really do wonders. All in all, though, the slices were still above average and more than adequate at delivering the wonderful flavoring.

Allow me to restate the vital point: vinegar and onion flavoring are awesome when combined, and it’s a wonder nobody thought of it before. They earn a million extra fancy points for going for shallots rather than regular onions, making this another example of truly excellent idea that deserves to spread beyond France’s normally underdeveloped potato chip market.

Stars: 3 /4

Spiciness Rating: None

Pros:

- Effectively tangy vinegar flavoring is evenly applied across the chips

- Sweet and tasty shallot aromas emerges from the vinegar base with subtlty and class

- Crisps are well baked

Cons:

- Crisps are thin and a little small, which I feel could be improved upon

Cerealis Chips-Up Hot & Spicy

2011-11-29T04:04:00.000-08:00

My final Tunisian Chip sampling was to take place nearly three months after my partner’s return from Tunisia, on a picnic in the Gardens of Versaille. By Gardens we’re talking about a piece of property the size of a national park, and you can vividly see in the beautiful flower arrangements, breath taking vistas, and scarifying hedge mazes all of the peasants that were left unfed just so that the Sun King could employ a gardening staff the size of an army division and coat his wrought iron garden-fences with gold. Yes, the peasants are revolting, but oh my god, just look at those hydrangeas!

In this romantic setting of reflected glory (quite literally, it was a very sunny day and there was a lot mirror-polished gold all about), I opened up the last Tunisian chip bag and began my degustation. Yet again, I found that the imagery on the bag- which suggests something rather potato-chip like in appearance- to be deceiving. The Chips Up line instead appears to be made out of a mash up of recombined potato mix pressed into softly-crunchy shells reminiscent of Indian papadum or Asian shrimp chips. This is not meant to sound as gross as it does, it just needs to be clarified that these are not potato chips but potato-based snacks. On the whole, each of the ‘chips’ is pretty large and abundant with surface area, and their soft crunch is reasonably satisfying.

Given the relatively tame nature of so many chips that claim to be spicy, I actually had pretty low expectations that these chips would live up to their title. Here, though, I was to be pleasantly surprised- Cerealis did not skimp on applying the spices, and each individual crisp proved to be potently piquant. They did skimp on the food coloring, which in general is something I’m supposed applaud them for, but I must admit eating pure-white chips without any visual cues as to their spicy nature can be a disconcerting experience.

Papadum: thin, crunchy and salty indian
cracker/chip things, preferably eaten
dipped in chutney or tamarind sauace.

A more serious shortcoming, however, is the lack of additional flavors. They are not spicy-barbecue, or spicy-garlicky, or spicy-pepper (though the cover art does suggest some bright red pepper powder), they are just plain spicy without apparent flavor they are specifically meant to evoke. So although I respect their spice-power, like the infamous band, I want some more substance to go along with it.

Yes, the gardens go on until the end of the canal. And they
gon on for a mile on each side, too. And there's a special
palace just for the Queen behind the woods to the right...

‘Chips Up’ appears to be an entire line of what I assume to be similarly formed crisps with different flavorings, and assuming they can apply other flavorings with the same effectiveness that they applied the spices on the snack I tried, I think they might be worthy of consideration by travelers in Tunisia (or natives, for that matter.) While hardly revolutionary, the potato-snack format is a little more quirkily original than the other Tunisian chips I tried, and the genuine spiciness of the Hot & Spicy variant suggests that the other flavors might show some similar virtues.

Stars: 2/4

Spiciness Rating: Hot

Pros:

- Recombined potato-snacks that are somewhat original and boast excellent surface area

- Truly, genuinely spicy-hot seasoning on each crisp

Cons:

- Serious lack of supporting flavors

- May be disappointing for anyone expecting crunchy potato chips

Lay’s Saveur Ketchup

2011-11-22T05:11:00.000-08:00

Ketchup has got to be the most déclassé condiment of our times, part and parcel of the whole hamburger-eating American stereotype which is alive and well for good reason, but let us concede to the undeniable truth of the matter: ketchup is pretty awesome. Try eating fries with and then without ketchup; this is not a purely academic exercise, because while French fries (or should I say, Belgian fries?- in fact, the origin story of the fries is far from clear...) are as popular in France as you might imagine, ketchup is not a default table setting, and a restaurant is much more likely to offer you a pot of mustard to accompany your frites (not bad as a dip, but lacking the sweetness which makes ketchup so lovable, forcing Norther Americans to publicly shame themselves into making a special request for a bottle of the red stuff .) So, while we all have a natural guilty feeling when we consider the gruesome bloody farts ketchup bottles produce, we should realize that without those venerable bottles of Heinz’s finest, we would be truly lost when confronted by yet another mound of flavorless ground beef and lightly seasoned fries.

Actually, there are some exotic theories
as to the origins of ketchup involving
a Malysian pickled fish sauce (koi-chep)
without tomatos brought into England
by explorers in the 18th century.

That said, my instinctive guilt surrounding this staple of horror movie special effects made me feel rather squeamish about the idea of ketchup chips. Just as you wouldn’t eat ketchup strait with a spoon, it seems grotesque to propose it as a chip seasoning. Those who know me well, however, can predict that my sense of duty prevailed and I decided to continue boldly claiming my mantle as the man willing to sample the snacks and reassure the littlefolk whether they are safe to try.

Fortunately for me, and the rest of you, it turns out Ketchup chips are as hot as a fountain of blood-red vinegary-sweet lava. They correctly lean a bit on the vinegary side, but add just the right notes of tomato-y sweetness that you’ll swear you have the after taste of Uncle Heinz’s mouth wash. If it helps, think of them as vinegar chips with a hint of tomato and sugar and you’ll be good to go- I think you will find the seasoning finely balanced between the acid and the sweet, or at least as balanced as the soup of cats.

Catsup.

Crisp wise, these are your regular Lay’s potato chips, which is to say unimpressive- lacking in crunch factor, but serviceable. However, that’s kind of beside the point- you buy Ketchup chips for flavoring, not texture, and fortunately, the seasoning is spread lightly and evenly throughout the chips to a generally positive effect. While I can imagine a few ways they could kicked them up a notch, (a phrase which seems to give not a few culinary observers a sort of post-coital thrill), the truth is Lay’s did an excellent job balancing the seasoning, and your fingers will smell like you just left a messy hamburger grill.

Stars: 3/4

Spiciness Rating: None

Pros:

- Nice but not overpowering vinegary flavor

- Uncannily evocative and subtly sweet tomato aromas

- They smell is just right!

Cons:

- The crisps are average in texture and a little flimsy

- The shame of a guilty pleasure

Grippo’s Maxi Snax Bar-B-Q Flavored Potato Chips

2011-11-17T04:23:00.000-08:00

Image courtesy of
Taquitos.net, who also
rather fancied these.

I’m usually enough of a latte-sipping ivory-tower elitist that I try to downplay my central Ohio origins, but there’s no getting around it- I spent 17 of the first 22 years of my life in either Columbus or around the college town of Yellow Springs (the latter experience putting my home state in oddly better perspective than growing up in the comparatively cosmopolitan capitol.) Ohio basically lies at the intersection between the industrial North East and the rural Midwest (personified by the bordering states of Michigan and Kentucky), and its long flat expanses are famously unpretentious. Every now and then, though, something strange gets cooked up in the Buckeye state, and the latest thing I’ve discovered is Grippo’s.

Everyone thinks Hippo's are all fun and,
cuddles, but I would suggest that they
should inspire terror. Jaws 4, anyone?

‘Grippo’s’ rather sounds like a name for a hippopotamus cartoon character, but my mom insisted they were recommended to her by a convenience store clerk who assured her that they had an authentic working class charm, though in less polite words. It’s always a wonderful revelation to find a gem in everyday places- in this case, the mysterious name comes from the original ‘Angelo Grippo’, (an Italian immigrant, so of course, use the Mario accent), who set up a pretzel shop in Cincinnati, Ohio at the turn of the last century, and I have read that they can also be found in stores in Kentucky, Northern Virginia, Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee.

I was intrigued but skeptical when my Mom sent these over to France- I was expecting perhaps some kettle cooked barbecue chips with a little seasoning pizzazz but nothing that original. Instead, I was slapped out of my skeptical-face by something unlike any other chip I have tasted before.

Grippos chips are so thick with crunchy sugar and spice
they look like cookies!

Each Grippo chip is thoroughly encrusted with brown sugar and seasoning- and I do mean encrusted, like the plump sucrose crystals on a sugar cookie. The crisp underneath is sodden with grease- the crunch is still there, but the highlight is the rich grill-oil sensation that fills the mouth as the sweet and salty sugar gems melt and the oil flows out of the dark orange crisps like the second coming of the Exxon Valdez. Then the back of your throat will light up too, because these chips are hot like a fire cracker, offering sparkling bursts of spicy heat with little threat of lasting damage. A lot of chips boast about how ‘flaming hot’ they are and then throw fake punches, but Grippo’s didn’t even advertise the spice factor, despite it being both considerable and expertly calibrated- now there’s some proper Ohio modesty!

This falls squarely into the genre of explicit
food porn- just look at the size of those
sugar crystals...

The flavor itself, besides being describable as ‘delicious’, ‘sweet’, and ‘spicy hot’, is also unique and outside of the genre of standard barbecue flavorings. There’s an unusual twist to the flavoring - a sweet-but-mildly-bitter cross between molasses and charred ribs- that’s hard to place, but that lies well outside the true-but-tried clichés of barbecue flavoring. In fact, the seasoning on the chips is apparently so popular that they are now selling it separately for use on the grill!

As it is, the density, spiciness, and sweetness of the spices on Grippo’s chips make them truly extraordinary, and while they don’t achieve it by using high-brow organic ingredients and kettle-cooking techniques, the end result is far more unique and amazingly delicious than many elite chip brands. The legacy of the illustrious Angelo Grippo remains well alive, and I am determined to learn more of his descendants’ doings forthwith.

Stars: 4/4

Spiciness: Hot

Pros:

- Amazingly sweet and unique flavor overload from the densely encrusted seasoning

- Chips are soaked in extra flavorful (and unhealthy) oil

- Real spicy kick, but not too much to hurt

Cons:

- Will not appeal to those who don’t like very heavy and strong seasonings

- The crisps are not particularly thick, but it’s like criticizing a roller coaster ride for not being sufficiently relaxing

Doritos Fajita Flavored

2011-10-31T09:16:00.000-07:00

Yes, you guessed it; it’s that special time of the month where I review yet another seasoning that’s riffing off of the stuff they served in your school cafeteria, (“stuff” being the absolutely most polite of the words I considered inserting into that sentence.) And, as in previous reviews, despite the dubious food items being imitated, I can’t help but enjoy the obvious effort that went into painstakingly recreating the nuances of cafeteria/Taco Bell style Tex-Mex, and the nostalgia captured therein.

Real fajitas...

That’s not to say Fajitas aren’t a fully legitimate food item in and of themselves. Properly done, they are an extra fun cross between a burrito and taco, with long slices of grilled meat stuffed into a pita alongside with the sweet and sour flavors of salsa, sour cream, grilled peppers, tomatos, and onions. But we are not talking about those sort of fajitas.

...and Taco Bell. Which looks tastier?
I was dismayed to see these happily
devoured by my old 4th Grade class for their
'nutritionally balanced' school lunches. Some
things haven't changed too much since I was a
kid, as Supersize Me (at 7:06) atests.

No, these are the fajitas I used to get in my elementary school cafeteria, and that I can still get today in just about any Taco Bell, stuffed full of ground beef and refried beans dripping with salty oil and smothered in cheese (because America is the place where everything is done BIG, our approach to incorporating melted cheese owes more to the mass artillery barrages of World War I than the swift surgical strikes of the modern era.) A little packet of ‘salsa’ is usually provided on the side, and maybe some onions or lettuce is thrown in the ground-up mix, hapless conscripts drawn from more gentile cuisine, but basically your mouth is in for an oil and salt bath. To dress up the flavor, a generic Mexican seasoning is thrown in, giving the ground beef a modicum of flavor, though unfortunately adding to the already bursting salt quota.

Now, I will guiltily admit that didn’t sound entirely bad to me, and when I was kid it seemed pretty decent (if not exactly great.) Plenty of people still enjoy their Taco Bell today, and whom am I in my Chipotle-catered ivory tower to look down upon them? Even the dedicated snob occasionally feels the allure of lower tastes, even when they have a superior alternative ready at hand.

This is where I want to live when I grow up.

So, for those school cafeteria and Taco Bell lovers out there, these chips nail the flavor of those greasy quasi-fajitas. The flavorist went well beyond tossing on some generic south western spices, going to the trouble of painstakingly recreating the aroma of the refried beans, the smothering cheese, and above all the pungency of those salty Old El Paso-style Mexican seasonings to the T. Instead of treating a lowly subject with the contempt it deserved, they approached it as if it were a true art and thereby elevated beyond its station, just as Tarantino would seek to find Truth and Beauty in a film about Nazi werewolf dominatrixes.

"Werewolf Women of the SS evokes the
deeper themes of self-alienation and the
creation of the 'other' by juxtaposing its
eroticized lupine protagonists with the
tyrannical socio-political order their
howling orgies of violence help unleash."

Did I even bother mentioning these were Doritos? Purely incidental information, as Flavoring is God. The crisps are visibly salted with more seasoning than the standard Dorito, including decent-sized chunks of black pepper. Predominating are salty south-western spices (composed of cumin, paprika, garlic, black pepper), which are for once suitably spicy; underneath is the flavor of refried beans, close behind is a mild hint of melted cheddar cheese, and far in the distance, a faint taste of those forlorn tomatoes tossed in for authenticity’s sake, just like the diced vegfgies contemptuously chucked into a Taco Bell Chalupa.

So, Fajita Doritos are surprisingly tasty and evocative, even if what they evoke is incredibly greasy and salty and lacks the elements of grilled meat, vegetables, and sophisticated sauces we look to from genuine Mexican cuisine. The moderate spicy piquancy and the uncanny flavor emulation with the spices combine to make these Doritos an enjoyable experience, although I should reiterate that the salt averse should probably stay away. Though the subject matter may not really be worth imitating, when it’s done this well, it can still excite the interest of nostalgic taste buds.

Stars: 2½ /4

Spiciness: Moderate

Pros:

- Clever flavor emulation brings to life the flavor of greasy cafeteria cooking and drive-through Taco Bell

- Diverse mixture of spices and elements

Cons:

- Very salty

- Leaves one yearning for seasonings with higher aspirations

Cheetos Pizzerini

2011-10-24T09:49:00.001-07:00

Today I will introduce for your pleasure a truly a pan-European delicy-Cheetos Pizzerini are parently manufactured in Poland, but the text in the back is additionally written Lithuania, Latvian, Estonian, Hungarian, and Czech! Just like the Tunisian take on Sun Chips, the Cheetos brand in Eastern Europe retains the same recognizable imagery and symbols (Chester seems spry and cool and has apparently so far avoided succumbing to Feline Infectuious Peritonitis, the ebola-virus of cheetah-kind), but the finished product bears only coincidental resemblance to any Cheetos you have encountered in the United States despite the orange Cheetah on the packaging.

"Stocky leapords" is a phrase you will
only encounter when Cheetahs take
over the world. And they will. Oh yes,
they will...

Now, curiously, the Polish word for ‘Cheetah’ is gepard- you guessed it, the same as the word for leopard. But wait a minute, aren’t those the same thing? In fact, the cheetah has a smaller body and longer tail (speed record for an animal moving on land, yo- 105 kilometers an hour in your tasty, tasty gazelle-like face), tear-strike lines running from its eyes to the chin for the scary-licious kabuki-samurai I’m-going-to-murderize-you-while-crying look, and bigger spots.

Nothing says "I'm going to slaughter you so
hard I need to start weeping tears in advance
in my horror of the deed" then some black
lipstick and eyeliner with tear trails,
as Cheetahs and Abyssal Exalted
know well...

Rather than the hard and crunchy cheese fingers Americans have come to expect, Cheetos Pizzerini are shaped more like three dimensional hearts or lozenges, relatively large in size (about an 1” in across) and with a much softer and less dense corn-puff base. Naturally, they are coated with a a pretty red tomato-basil/pizza seasoning colored with occasional flecks of green that tastes rather like Pizza Combos. (My theory is that professional flavorists have imitated the likes of animated sitcoms, radical philosophers, and Shrek movies and become predominantly self-referential.)

Note that these are ovoid in shape rather than flat,
like the Rebel transports escaping from Hoth.

As a complete package it’s pretty decent- the tomato basil flavoring is reasonably tasty, even though it wasn’t quite strong enough for my liking, and the soft texture of the corn puffs invites rapid munching, though I’m afraid it’s not quite as fun as the crunchiness of real Cheetos nor as densely textured as classic Cheese Curls.

Still, Polish Cheetos are an entertaining departure from regular American products for jaded chip-eaters, and I think you can’t go wrong trying these out just to see how differently a company will spin the brand name to suit what are presumably local tastes.

Stars: 2½

Spiciness Rating: None

Pros:

- Competent pizza-like flavoring

- Soft corn-puff lozenges are relatively novel and highly munchable

Cons:

- Not quite as good as the original Cheetos recipe

- Stronger flavoring would have been welcome

Pringles Xtreme Exploding Cheese & Chili

2011-10-13T08:16:00.000-07:00

As if acknowledging the regular inadequacy of the seasoning on many Pringle’s chips, the Pringle’s XTREME series sets out to show that they can cover their crisps with enough seasoning if they really want to. As far as this particular variant is concerned, I can assure you that they have succeeded in rectifying this habitual shortcoming, (though my experience with the XTREME Ragin’ Cajun chips was far different) and the crisps are not lacking for strong flavors.

Unfortunately, I’m not sure I entirely understand what they’re trying to do here- the flavoring says they are cheese and chili, and by chili, the illustrations on the canister make clear they mean chili peppers, not chili soup. Unfortunately, while melted cheese on top of a bowl of chili is a very natural combination, I don’t feel that eating straight cheese with straight chili peppers is something any of us is likely to have done- (queer ones, on the other hand…)

This is what you will find if you Google 'Gay Chili';
it mustbe tough when your country is one spelling
error away from being Tex Mex cuisine. Question:
is the police officer a pretty boy or a butch womyn,
and tell me those are not bedroom eyes...

“Jalapeno Poppers” I can hear you suggesting, but though the peppers on the box may be green, they flavor is not specifically that of jalapeno. In fact, the only sense that it is ‘chili flavored’ is that it’s spicy, although the spiciness seems eerily concentrated on the tip of the tongue, rather than being distributed more naturally along its length as you would from an organic seasoning. Still, the chips are fairly piquant, so I won’t complain too much about it.

If the chips are a little thin on the “spicy pepper” side of things, that mostly leaves the cheese flavor, which at least isn’t subtle in announcing itself. Unfortunately, it does hit you over the head with its saltiness and doesn’t taste like any particular type of cheese, so I’m not that impressed, but at least it’s an improvement over more half-hearted flavorings. The main ingredient in the ‘chili-cheese flavoring’: MSG. No, really, look at it yourself, it’s the first ingredient listed! Though after you get through the first three or four chemicals after the MSG, you do find it also includes garlic and onion powder, and some generic cheese and chili powder.

The second time I had these chips, a pack of ghouls
had just emerged from a secret door in the pyramid
to ambush my sleeping comrades. We survived, minus
significant chunks of our mortal flesh.
The chips did not.

So you may have gotten that I’m not a big fan of them, but I shouldn’t exaggerate: if you want an unsubtle salty and spicy cheese flavor, you can definitely find it here, and there’s not a hint of the lack of seasoning problems afflicting many other types of Pringles. However, the flavors just didn’t come together for me in an evocative way: I just couldn’t figure out what they were supposed to taste like, but clearly it was not anything natural. However, the drunken girls in the kitchen last Friday night gobbled them right up, so maybe there are times when subtlety is unnecessary.

Stars: 2

Spiciness: Moderate

Pros:

- The flavoring is strong and well spread across the crisps

- Chips are genuinely spicy

Cons:

- The spiciness is somewhat unnatural seeming, like the ingredients themselves

- Cheese flavoring is too salty

Monoprix Tortillas Enroulées

2011-10-08T08:15:00.000-07:00

The first chips I bought in France were Tomato-Basil chips, but since then it’s been a long dry haul in the category of Italian-inspired seasoning, until the other day my favorite half-elf snagged a small bag of them for a picnic out on the Buttes de Chaumont.

Those familiar with my earlier review of the Tortillas Enroulee Fromage should recognize the format; basically a Nacho corn tortilla round wrapped into a cylinder evocative of those cute little cookies you get with your coffee. (Incidentally, in addition to being known as pirouettes, these cookies are also apparently called ‘cigarettes’, which I guess would sound sweet and delicious only to a Parisian- the air is fresh indoors here, I swear.) The rolled tortilla chip format might sound gimmicky, but it’s actually crunches very pleasingly in the mouth, and is still usable with thicker dips like guacamole or cheese dip. They seemed like exactly the sort of thing that would go well with tomato-basil flavoring.

Cigarette smoke from philosophy students
and fashion models makes up 20% of Paris's
atmosphere. Unfortunately, all the coffee
does not also contribute to the odor.

Unfortunately, I must report with a heavy heart that if this is a tomato flavoring, it is a very sad and watery tomato. Or maybe canned tomatoes, tasting more of tin and iron than juicy vegetable. The rods are sweet, kind of like a sun-dried tomato, but it is a sickly half-hearted kind of sweet lacking in panache or self-confidence, and there’s a weird sort of celery-salt like flavor that I imagine is supposed to be like basil, but I assure you, rarely anything good can come of celery salt. It’s a kind of generic vegetably mashup with a sweet element on top, a sort of feebler V8.

I wouldn’t say they were inedible, because you still have the basic sweet and salty to carry you through, but the vegetable flavor tastes just a little off, like blood in your mouth (maybe it’s the iron from that canned tomato flavor!). They certainly don’t taste like tomato, (though to be fair, ‘tomato powder’ is listed on the ingredients list right after sugar and salt), but worse is that it just doesn’t taste good. Still, the fundamentally satisfying crunchiness of the underlying rolled-up-tortilla chips save these from being a total waste, but anyone looking for a good tomato flavored chip should look elsewhere, and anyone intrigued by tortilla cigarettes/pirouettes/whatevers should probably buy the cheese-flavored variety.

Blood flavored tomato chips? And I
they don't even need to be stalked and
seduced?

Stars: 1½/4

Spiciness Rating: None

Pros:

- Basic rolled-over corn tortilla round format is fun to crunch in your mouth

- Flavoring at least manages to offer a semi-adequate salty-sweet balance

Cons:

- Flavoring is still awful in most respects, failing to taste like actual tomato-basil, sun dried tomatoes, or good in any respect

Chio Chips Bacon szalonna izesitesu

2011-10-05T06:56:00.000-07:00

If one European country comes close to matching the American fondness for wrapping everything in bacon, it must be Hungary, and there’s an interesting explanation rooted in ethno-zoology. Mangalica is a species of hairy hog raised almost exclusively in Hungary and the Balkan that’s quite in fashion with the chefs in Budapest. When I heard they were ‘hairy hogs’ I imagined something like an extra-whispy wild boar, like the Thundertusk boar in the Monster Manual, but actually they look instead rather like sheep. In pig form.

Woolly enough to make knit sweater out of.

Apparently, mangalica are declining in popularity outside of the haute-cuisine scene because they mostly produce lard, which isn’t a winner in these health-conscious times, but lardy pork nevertheless has uses in a number of remarkably tasty things such as sausage and bacon. While I can’t say I pulled any hairs from my pork, I certainly came to appreciate the local fondness for bacon. My best meal in Hungary: chicken stuffed with bacon, stuffed with asparagus with gorgonzola polenta. Hungarian menus evince the indisputable reality that there are few dishes that can’t be improved by a judicious application of salty-sweet pork- and/or cream sauce.

Yes, that's aspargus in bacon
in fried chicken in balsamic
sauce.

Chio’s Bacon chips promised a lot along these lines, with a beautiful image of a slab of dark bacon displayed gratuitously on the cover of the bag, and it was hard not to respond to its whispered promises. A quick trip back to the guesthouse we were lodged in at Blaha Lujza revealed, however, that these were fairly ordinary salty barbecue flavored chips.

Now, unlike in France, we did not see ‘Barbecue’ products on the store shelves, so it seems that this tried and true vein of tasty seasoning was simply being labeled in a fashion more appropriate to local tastes. These chips did a reasonable job of conveying a salty-smoky aroma, only using natural flavoring and coloration if the blurb on the package is to be believed. They did more to evoke barbecue than bacon, but towards the end of the package, I could kind of imagine I was tasting the extra salty and crunchy bacon that’s been very thoroughly fried on the grill till it’s brittle and crispy.

I kind of imagined a 'hairy pig'
would look like this, but the reality is
less stabby.

The crisps themselves were reasonably pretty and authentic looking but not particularly crunchy- they had that thin-styrofoam texture to them which is acceptable in snack food, but less than virtuous. As a whole, these chips proved serviceable but not exceptional- those looking for a familiar barbecue-like experience will be satisfied, but if you’re in Hungary, you might as well go for something a little more exotic. Say, for example, actual sheep-pigs.

Stars: 2/4

Spiciness Rating: None

Pros:

- Decent barbecue flavor, may eventually remind you of crispy bacon

Cons:

- More barbecue-y than bacon, not particularly inventive

- The crisps themselves aren’t very crunchy

Crusti Croc Chips Paprika

2011-09-30T04:02:00.000-07:00

There is an old teacher’s meme that “if only your child put half of the effort into his studies that he puts into (throwing stickballs/drawing comic strips/hiding whoopee cushions under the teacher’s desk/involving himself in extra-curricular sex-ed, etc.) than he would do brilliantly in school.” For me, it was usually between “writing design documents for unfeasibly complicated computer games” or “reconsidering whether Hitler could have captured Moscow in 1941”. In this spirit, I can tell the people at Crusti-Croc “If you put half the effort into your flavoring that you put into your food coloring, you might have something awesome.

The battle at the gates of Moscow in 1941 is the closest
real life evercame to the ski-level in Modern Warfare 2,
AKA the third dream in the movie Inception.

Now, to be fair, Crusti Croc is basically the brand name of a German discount-grocery chain called Lidl (sort of in the vein of Aldis), and so you have to understand that we’re intrinsically going to be talking about a quantity-for-quality trade off with their products. And in terms of quantity, well they do offer pretty good tonnage for your euro, by European standards at least.

I will even remark in their favor that the chips are fairly large and nicely bubbly in texture for something so cheap, though they are text-book Lay’s style potato chips in so far as they are thin and underwhelming in terms of crunchiness. They are rather pretty with all of the orange food dye they’ve been bathed in, like young girls discovering their inner Picasso when they play with mom’s make-up kit, and look like they are going to explode in tasty flavorfulness when they reach your mouth.

When you are kid, MOR KOLARZ = BETTARZ!
Also, you talk like an orc and try
to bite lollipops.Clearly this one
is angling to for a role in a
Kid Cudi music video.

Unfortunately, the beauty here is only skin-deep, because they remarkably fail to have any flavor whatsoever. No, seriously. These are supposed to be Paprika chips, which apparently are the style du jour here, but you will not taste any paprika, and there is nothing even remotely resembling spiciness here. There is a slight excess of saltiness which becomes apparent after having a few in succession- the balance is off and the saline in your mouth will become unpleasant if you don’t space out the chips.

Really, though, the extent to which they have failed to impart any flavor is truly breathtaking. There is only one good reason to buy these, and that’s if you want a large quantity of regular chips and don’t care about flavor. They do have the virtue of being large and bubbly for something so cheap, so if you’re drunk out of your mind, you won’t bite your tongue off trying to nibble them. Still, how they managed to release something on the market without any tastable seasoning truly boggles the mind.

Stars: 1½

Spiciness: None

Pros:

- Chips are nice and bubbly for a product so inexpensive

- They’re pretty to look at like a vapid teen movie star

Cons:

- NO FLAVORING AT ALL IN EVIDENCE
- Crisps are on the side of average-thin

Route 11 Potato Chips Chesapeake Crab

2011-09-28T06:56:00.000-07:00

Both my parents and my partner have long crusaded to bring an end to my sinful non-seafood-eating ways, and their latest plot was to send me crab-flavored chips, reasoning that even if I could resist eating seafood chips, I couldn’t resist eating something my mom had sent over the Atlantic. Well, they reasoned rightly, and I could only dutifully proceed with the loathsome consumption entailed therein.

I spent a year growing up in Maryland when I was young and four more years of my life in DC (which is basically split between Maryland and Virginia), and over all that time I’ve conspicuously avoided a uniquely local contribution to snack food: Crab-flavored chips. Marylanders are crazy about crabs, and love nothing more than indulging in a barbarous orgy of crab-dismemberment, preferably in a group involving family and friends- ripping off limbs, literally hammering the shell away with little mallets, tearing out the grotesque yellow glow-in-the-dark viscera, and sucking up the succulent white crab-meat amidst the broken bits of sea-dwelling arthropod exoskeleton.

All before the eyes of innocent children, who are even encouraged to participate.

Think Lil Kim cutting bitches in woman's prison.
It's as if the aliens in Starship Troopers
were being sliced up by berserk marines as
opposed to the other way around.

Yes, you may have gathered I am not a great fan of this custom, (nor seafood eating in general, as I have previously alluded), but to a Marylander, nothing quite approaches the pure bliss of crab eating short of making love on a summer beach, with or without crabs. I do not disparage Marylanders in making this observation, as my French father became a convert to their ways, and to this day fondly sports a giant photograph of Maryland crab with a beer can crushed between its pincers in his university office.

I wasn't kidding about the seasoning being 'caked'. Plus:
the yellow crab viscera. "The horror..." as Colonel Kurtz
(aka Marlon Brando) would whisper... Illustrative photos
courtesy of Insatiably Healthy.

Cue the surprise revelation: ‘crab’ chips are actually ‘crab seasoning’ chips. No, I was not entirely taken by surprise by this, but my anxiety about the degree of sea-foodishness of the flavoring has been settled for now- these chips are meant to simulate the red seasoning powder that is liberally caked on the crabs (and I use the word caked with little exaggeration.) Now, for all my negative childhood associations with the seasoning, ‘Old Bay spice’ (as in Chesapeake Bay), is actually rather similar to Cajun spices in my experience, and is an intriguing pretty red color. The spice has been sufficiently popularized around Maryland state that they pretty much apply it to everything, which is why you get the ‘Crab Chips’.

The Old Bay seasoning- rumor has it
it they mix in real Old Bay sand from
the sea floor for that authentic maritime
flavor.

The overwhelming flavor of Bay spice? Celery salt! Now, I am also not a big fan of celery salt (as an upcoming review of Monoprix’s ‘Tomato’ flavored Tortillas Enroulee will discuss), but here it is tastefully applied and blended with enough other spices, most obviously red and black pepper, paprika, cloves, and allspice, that I felt myself genuinely compelled to enjoy them. Note that the traditional ‘Old Bay’ spice incorporates all of those flavors, in addition to cardamom, nutmeg, mace, mustard seed, bayleaf, and ginger, so there’s likely even more seasonings going on under the hood. (The ingredients list rather curtly lists ‘spices’ and ‘paprika’, which is a curious distinction…) You may have intiuited that the chips are spicy based on the ingredients, and they do in fact ignite a definite back-of-the-throat burn, but nothing too intense- just the right level to please without going over into runny-nose territory.

The crisps themselves are small (between 1 ½ and 2 inches in diameter) but very high quality- thick and crunchy (the French word ‘craquant’, cracking comes to mind), baked dark brown onthe edges, colored a natural orange color by the seasonings, and sprinkled with large flecks of dried green herbs (celery I assume?). While I usually prefer larger crisps, the quality level of the texture and baking (which was apparently done using peanut oil) interested me in trying other Route 11 crisps. The chips themselves are also wheat- and gluten-free, and contain no trans fats, though the calorie count is par for the course when it comes to chips.

After the VMI cadets repelled
a Union attack at New Market
in the Shenandoah Valley, the
Union Army retaliated by burning
down the school, thereby realizing
the arson-laden dreams of my
childhood.

Route 11 apparently comes from Shenandoah Valley, Virginia which is pretty uambiguously inland from the coast, being between two great mountain ranges- besides being beautifully scenic, the valley was the sight of a number of smaller-scale Civil War battles. Clearly, though, the coastal influences have forced even 'real Virginians' to cater to the coastal tastes of 'Communist Country', as McCain’s brother once put it, with sterling results.

So, for a flavoring concept that I was never very comfortable with to begin with, I was rather impressed by the quality of Route 11’s crab chips. I can’t say they’ve converted me to Crab seasoning or Crab-eating, but they demonstrated their relative virtues- I’ll keep a more open mind about other Bay-spice flavored snacks in the future- impressing me both by their mix of seasoning and the excellent crunchiness and texture of the crisps.

Stars: 2 ½

Spiciness: Moderate

Pros:

- While I’m no expert about crab seasoning, it definitely smells and looks right!

- The seasoning is excellently distributed, and an artful blend of many different flavors

- Crunchiness, visual appeal, and texture of the crisps is superb

Cons:

- The Celery salt-averse may find it less to their taste, as would those who want a 'fishier' flavor

- Crisps are fairly small