In today’s Philadelphia Inquirer food section, a writer uses a new line of unusually flavored potato chips as a jumping-off point to talk about the perils of man-made food in an article titled “It’s in the snack aisle, but is it food?” Yeah, yeah, yeah, we know the drill: Eat plants, avoid Little Debbies, yadda yadda. What really has me intrigued with this piece is the mention of some very strange potato chip flavors. Philly cheese steak? Ketchup? Buffalo wing? Freaky! Gross sounding! I’ve gotta get some!
At last America is starting to catch up with the Brits, who have long boasted shelves full of chips flavored like lamb with mint jelly or roast beef with mustard. Lay’s! Bring it! Let’s have some chicken vindaloo chips, and some peanut butter and jelly chips, and please don’t forget the Vietnamese summer roll chips, redolent with cilantro and mint. Mmm.
According to the authoritative potato chip tasters at snack review site taquitos.net, the Philly cheese steak chips aren’t half bad. I’m sold.
Ketchup is a strange potato chip flavour? All those years growing up in Canada, eating Ketchup chips (I hated BBQ, ketchup was my flavour) and I never knew I was being strange.
Maybe this means we can FINALLY get dill pickled-flavored chips that I loved in Canada.
I don’t know where you are, Stephanie365, but the Tim’s Cascade line has a dill pickle chip. Not so weird when you think about it — every flavor you associate with dill pickles (dill, vinegar, garlic) is also associated with either potatoes or potato chips (does anyone consider salt and vinegar chips exotic anymore?).
Kettle chips has all kinds of “weird” flavors, including buffalo blue (pretty good) and Thai (I’m not a fan)
I concur with Jacquilynne – ketchup potato chips are considered weird? Come on!
Truth be told, though I am curious about the “exotic” potato chip flavors, nothing can beat my old standby of sour cream and onion.
Old Dutch also makes a dill pickle chip. I can’t buy them because I will eat the whole bag.
Can’t be any weirder than Pringles printing stuff on their chips. And speaking of Pringles, did they make new hires recently in the Flavor Development Department? Have you seen all these new Pringles? Cinnamon Pringles. Really.
For some reason, the classic sour-cream-and-onion flavor is delicious, but the scent lingers on your breath for what seems like days. Horrible. I wonder if Lamb and Mint Jelly would smell like after you chow down on them.
Mmm, British crisps…prawn, turkey dinner with dressing…the fun never ends.
At the big Thai markets in L.A., they have some nice Lays from Thailand in curry and wasabi flavors that are VERY spicy.
In France, although there isn’t that much junk food, “pizza” is a popular flavor for chips and crackers.
“Funky” flavored chips aren’t so distantly related from the North American family as one might think. FritoLay distributes Walkers in the UK, and Walkers has its own line of upmarket “flavoured crisps” like turkey dinner, chicken tikka masala, and spicy thai basil. My all-time favorite flavor effort has got to be from Kettle Chips– Mango Chilli is marketed as “angry fruit”… http://www.kettlefoods.co.uk/site/WebSiteProducts.do?id=501.54.613&range=1&detailId=2003 (it wasn’t my favorite flavor, though)