Striking Gold

The next contestant in the Best Salt & Vinegar potato chip contest is Terra's Yukon Gold.



As the name implies, this chip is not made with your garden variety Russet potato but rather with Yukon Golds. I had no idea until today that they were bred in Canada. Anyway, Terra fries their chips in canola and/or safflower and/or sunflower oils. Why the fuck can't potato chip manufacturers tell us exactly the type of oil in which their potatoes are fried? Is it laziness? Do the prices of the various cooking oils fluctuate wildly depending on the futures market so it all depends on what's cheap at any given moment? Whatever the case, Terra makes super-premium-hyper-expensive specialty chips. The bag I'm eating probably cost me a few bucks and, for my hard-earned lucre, I get a measly 5 oz. For the extra money I get extra seasoning. Looking at the ingredients list, I see garlic and onion powders listed so I'm expecting a pretty lousy chip. Don't fuck with the salt & vinegar people! You don't need more seasoning when you have salt & acetic acid. Besides, these folks already have an Onion & Garlic chip already so why try to fix something if it ain't broke?

The chips themselves are quite thick and crunchy but not overly so. The edges are crispy while the centers remain fairly tender. The odd center veered perilously close to soggy but, fortunately, never quite reached that level. Flavorwise, the first thing you notice is the intense creamy taste of the Yukon Golds. This is one reason I love using them for mashed potatoes. It's a great start and I found myself absorbing the potatoey goodness and absorbing it and absorbing it because these chips have no vinegar bite whatsoever. Indeed, my taste buds struggled to discern any vinegar whatsoever. It did detect the faint rooty flavors of the garlic and onion, however. I thought this situation must have been a mistake and dug deeper into the bag figuring all the acetic acidy goodness had gravitated to the bottom but, alas and alack, the chips were just as devoid of the precious vinegar down there as well.

I rate these chips high for the rich, creamy taste of the potatoes but the seasoning is severely lacking. I'd almost go as far as saying that it's false advertising. One molecule per square inch per square inch just doesn't cut it.