Tales of the Salty Bag

Sour Cream & Onion isn't the most exciting chip flavour. In my opinion it's a flavour that often gets overlooked due to it's lack of flash, bang, POW! SC&O is an inoffensive flavour..which makes my next statement all the more surprising. A month ago I was on a road trip and I stumbled upon a bag of Sour Cream & Onion in a gas station, I grabbed them and have been pretty excited to pull open the bag since. The reason for this excitement..they're Covered Bridge. When I cracked the bag tonight and took a whiff, well..there isn't much to be said, SC&O is not the most fragrant flavour. The chips look like standard Covered Bridge, some skins and just the right ratio of perfectly browned chip to potato yellow. I tossed one in my mouth and was met with an evenly flavoured somewhat thick creamy SC&O seasoning. Every once in a while the actual potato chip shines through with some skin or browned potato flavour which just adds to the the SC&O flavour ra...

I've been looking forward to? this post for a while..I think? Pringles, I believe they once went by a slogan of "Once you pop you can't stop". I have never agreed with that slogan, for as long as I can remember they've been the mountain dew to my crab juice. Whenever I see someone with a can of Pringles I seriously question their sanity. All that aside, I haven't crunched on a tube in I'm guessing 10+ years and maybe my tastes have changed. I figured that in order for me to make a serious post regarding \em I had to get me some tubes and crunch away. You know, have a fresh take on these formed and tubed "potato chips". There have certainly been Pringles flavours that have intrigued me so I snatched up a handful of tubes when they went on sale; Spicy Guacamole (actually pretty good flavour wise), Jalapeno (meh, not enough Jalap too much Pringle "chip" flavour), Pizza (kind of tastes like 3 cheese pizza pops, weird tasting faux "ch...

On a recent trip I picked up some records and some salty snacks. Of these records and snacks I picked up two based on packaging. Tasty Nuts (Haldiram's Nagpur, Taste of Tradition, Indian Snacks, Tasty Nuts, Spicy Peanuts, "Spiced coated fried peanuts" to be exact). I saw these gems in the store and thought, "Who doesn't want some tasty nuts?". They come in a maroon bag with a picture of the nuts taking up half of the space while lettering and the Haldiram's logo taking up the rest. When it was time to get to snacking I poured some nuts into my hand to view some peanuts that have a light yellow almost flaky coating sprinkled with a red seasoning powder. I popped them into my mouth and was delightfully met with peanuts covered in a light (almost flakey?) crunchy coating. The seasoning on the nuts is fairly spicy. Something like a hot chili powder with a hint of mesquite? and possibly a hint of lime? [I'm not great with labeling spice but these nuts a...

When I was a kid there only seemed to be 2 kettle cooked chip brands;. Dutch Crunch and Miss Vickie's. Miss Vickie's always seemed expensive and were a treat, for the longest time MV's Sea Salt & Vinegar were my jam (they're still pretty good). Then I either started looking around..or the market flooded and there were Kettle Cooked chips everywhere. Either way, Miss Vickie's eh? A while back I cracked a bag of MV's Balsamic Vinegar & Sweet Onion. When I took a whiff there wasn't really anything to write home about. The chips are Standard Miss Vickie's, nice kettle cooked chip weight and crunch without being overly greasy. When chip met maw my taste-buds were initially treated with some tangy vinegar flavour (it's present but not aggressive)..soon the vinegar tang becomes sweet letting it's balsamic roots shine through. Initially it wasn't until after swallowing that the onion became present with the aftertaste being similar to sour cr...

The annual Lays "Do Us a Flavour" contest has a similar plus/minus as the weather man so when I saw that one of only four Canadian flavour contestants last summer was Wavy Lays Cowboy BBQ Beans it should go without saying that I was less than enthused. My inner monologue when I saw them, "Yay, an unrecognizable salty flavour that will taste like faux bacon and nothing, all at the same time. YOU GO LAYS!!". Why did I even pick up a bag you might ask? Well, addiction doesn't discriminate. Being that I had pretty low expectations it took me a while to get around to opening them. A couple weeks ago it was finally go time. *Snatch* *Tear* *Sniff*..well, they smelt like a can of brown beans. Into the mouth with ye, and I was met with what I had assumed, smokey "bacon" chips..there was however a hint of sweetness. Did my taste-buds deceive me, were these chips better than I thought they'd be? Yes. Were they good? Meh. Salty slightly faux smoke flavour. Af...

This past March my in laws went on a lil' vacation. When they returned to the homeland I was presented with a bag of Hawaiian Values Surf's Up Big Waves for Dipping Potato Chips (plain). These fellas come in a big 283g bag that's graphics fit the brand name perfectly; a surf board, some waves, a nice blue sky and a sun peaking out from behind the Hawaiian Values text. The packaging alone gets a big smile and thumbs up. Crack the bag open, pull out your loupe for full on inspecting and you will find a chip that falls somewhere between a Ruffles chip and a Wavy Lays. About 3/4 Ruffles and 1/4 Wavy Lays I'd say. These chips are average leaning towards lightly salted. Since Surf's Up Big Waves are towards the Ruffles end of the spectrum they're on the more puffy side of crunchy. Not a bad chip, they are, however, a little weak for my dipping needs (I can be an aggressive dipper). Ever since (I want to say January 2013) every time I hear a mention of surfing or rip...

For some reason the man wants you to believe that dip should be primarily consumed on top of a fairly plain conduit (be it a chip, cracker..knife, spoon..finger). I'm not sure who trend setter zero is in this instance, but that person should have been slapped. I'm not saying dip's not enjoyable with plain (salted) chips/crackers/what have you, but if you stop there you're going to miss out on a whole world of flavour. I've previously mentioned ketchup chips into dill pickle dip , but that's just the tip of the iceberg. Most people can enjoy an artist recording/getting up onto stage with just their voice and a guitar. I can also confidently say that people need more than that sometimes..if not most of the time. Throw in some drums, bass, another guitar..some brass or a fiddle, how bout a slide whistle or a back up singer..shit, even a beer tray. Take Red Roses for Me, The Pogues first album, for example. They literally used a beer tray on multiple tracks. Go li...