House of the Frying Spud: Hy-Vee Sea Salt & Malt Vinegar Potato Chips

The humble potato made the news recently, kinda sorta. Toy mega-company Hasbro announced that they're changing the name of their venerable Mr. Potato Head toy to simply Potato Head. Seems a bit less genteel, if you ask me. Otherwise the toy remains the same – a bunch of plastic body parts you attach to a plastic potato simulacrum body.

One thing I learned in the ensuing brouhaha was that, when the toy was introduced back in 1952, you only got the parts with the expectation being that you'd provide a real spud to attach them to.

This was a very American toy in that the potato is an American vegetable. If you see a potato being eaten on television by medieval knights before they go a-jousting, you know it's bunk. Potatoes didn't make it over to Europe until the 16^th century. They grew wild for who knows how long around parts of South American until they were domesticated in a region that is now part of Peru several thousands of years ago. The Incas believed in a potato goddess named Axomamma which makes me think the Grateful Dead might have been tripping and eating potato chips when they came up with the name of their third album.

Highly unlike Peru, however, Iowa is not generally associated with the potato. However, it is the home of the Hy-Vee supermarket chain. Iowa is the land of corn so how good could Hy-Vee potato chips be, you ask. Like I noted, Hy-Vee is a chain of supermarkets so they contract the production of their house brand of chips to a neighboring spudsmith to the north in Minnesota, Old Dutch. Ironically, Minnesota is a state equally unrenowned for their potato crops. Then again, Idaho, the state most closely associated with potatoes doesn't seem to have a potato chip maker of national repute.

I believe that this is the first house brand I've encountered and suspect there will be more when I go to schwankier stores like Trader Joe's and Whole Foods. I have no idea what the logicistics and economics of a house brand are. Are Hy-Vee and Old Dutch making out like bandits on them? Or is it more about getting the Hy-Vee logo more exposure and earning a few pennies along the way?

Although the Hy-Vee bag is a little on the spartan side, it does feature a reusable seal, a new feature for potato chips bags in my experience. Once opened, the chips smell like a pan full of fried potatoes that you're going to have with some schnitzel. They look to be of a slightly thicker cut than normal.

These are kettle style chips but have a moderate crunch to them. I found them not to be particularly salty and have a slightly greasy taste, not unlike the way I make fried potatoes for my schnitzel. They tasted just a little mealy which is how I find most Old Dutch chips to be. Most importantly, they had what you might say is an assertive vinegar tang to them. Probably the most vinegary chips I've had in a good, long time. But they didn't taste malt vinegary to me – just plain old white vinegar. The fact remains, though, that my mouth got rather numb after a serving of these chips.

In addition to loving all that acetic acid, I was really surprised that some muckety mucks at Hy-Vee actually approved these potent potatoes. They are really, really good.

As I write, this review is the end of phase 1 of my salt & vinegar potato chip quest. Or maybe it's phase 2 since I did a few reviews back in 2005 or so. Anyway, I've been to 5 different grocery stores as of late and have now sampled every salt & vinegar potato chip I've come across. Well, that's not true. There is an organic version of one brand's chip that I haven't tried. And, no, I don't consider Pringles to be potato chips. They're like a processed potato food product, the Velveeta of potato chips. And so, it may take me a little while to find some new chips to review. There are more grocery stores to scour and convenience stores galore.