I was somewhere around Pflaum Road on the edge of Monona when the urge for carbs began to take hold. I remember thinking something like "I want potato salad; maybe I should drive to Pick 'n Save''. German food was on the menu that evening and I needed something starchy to go with the chicken and cabbage. I felt that German potato salad with its tasty vinegar tang would be just the thing to round out the meal. Plus it had the advantage of being German.
If memory serves, I also wanted something for dessert and there was another necessity that I was running low on like toilet paper or dishwashing liquid or some such thing. Despite snacks being absent from my list, I strolled through the snack aisle because, when you enjoy reviewing salt & vinegar potato chips, you cannot help yourself. At first it was just the usual suspects with some delicious looking ghost pepper potato chips thrown in for good measure. But just as the Kartoffelchips were beginning to give way to their tortilla cousins, I spied "Salt & Vinegar" writ medium on a bag that I hadn't seen previously.
While I had certainly seen the Kroger brand around, I was largely unfamiliar with it. This is a bit odd considering just how big The Kroger Co. is. According to Wikipedia, Kroger is headquartered in Cincinnati and is the largest supermarket chain in the United States. It is(was?) also the second largest retailer in this country, behind only Walmart. My family and friends in Chicagoland are familiar with the Kroger sub-brand, Mariano's, while those of us in Wisconsin know Roundy's which is further subdivided into Copps, Metro Market, and Pick 'n Save. It speaks to my near single-minded dedication to Woodman's (or laziness - ed.) that I've never been to the Metro Market here in Madison nor have I frequented Copps and Pick 'n Save very much.
Now that I think about, I do believe I've been shopping at Woodman's here on the east side since c.1991. I recall going to the Kohl's which was over at Winnebago and Milwaukee on the odd occasion, though. I rather miss the place with its arched roof, a look that was unique to Kohl's stores. There is a photo of it at this page along with other locations with the inimitable architectural member. Looking at that site I learned that the Pick'n Save mentioned above is, in fact, a former Kohl's store. But one from the later years after the arched roof had fallen out of favor.
If the history of Madison's grocery stores is right up your Strasse, check out the page at Groceteria dedicated to our fair burg. You couldn't swing a dead cat on Atwood Avenue back in the 30s without hitting a grocer. They were everywhere.
So how were the chips?
Despite calling Kroger, I was unable to ascertain who makes their chips for them as I didn't have a model # or SKU or whatever for the person on the other end to do their query with in the computer system so the spudsmith's identity will go unknown, for better or for worse. For now, anyway.
Sticking my nose into the bag much to the disgust of my Frau, I smelled mostly oil but there was a hint of vinegar too if I huffed it. I put a serving into what is now my official chip testing dish and noted that these chips were of a slightly darker hue than normal. Potato variety? Length in the fryer?
Kroger says these were kettle cooked and so they were as attested to by their kettle crunchiness. Salt level was average while the vinegar tartness was fairly mellow. However, it built up as more chips made their way into my maw. The vinegar taste remained in the background even as my mouth was rendered numb by the acetic acid.
Despite having lactose, I found these chips to have a potato flavor that was more earthy than sweet. This throws previous hypothesizing about lactose adding sweetness to chips under suspicion.
Not bad. A little more vinegar taste would have been nice but these chips are nothing to sneeze at.
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