Chips for the Great Outdoors

Earlier in June I stopped in at my local Cabela's to get some rain gear in anticipation of a trip up north. It took me a while but I finally found just the right waterproof jacket and a hat to boot. Standing in the checkout line, I noticed rows of potato chips. Salt & vinegar potato chips, no less, so I just had to get a bag of Uncle Buck's.

I was reminded of the movie of the same name starring John Candy which, in turn, brought another movie of his, The Great Outdoors, to mind. Would these chips pair well with a 96oz steak?

Bass Pro Shops are no doubt too busy selling lures, rods, and reels to be slicing potatoes and frying them up. The back of the bag revealed the people behind the curtain: 1 in 6 Snacks out of Raleigh, North Carolina was responsible for these here chips.

The name comes from a statistic that the founders heard back when they started the company: 1 in 6 Americans didn't know where their next meal would come from. This being the case, some proceeds from their snack sales go to a local food bank by which I assume they mean one out in North Carolina.

In 2021, just over 10% of American households were food insecure, which is a great improvement over 1 in 6. Of course, looking at folks whose incomes are closer to the poverty line, you find more food insecurity. With various pandemic relief programs ending, I suspect food insecurity will go up.

Closer to home, I have given to Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin, though it's been too long. Here in the Eastmorland Neighborhood, the SS Morris Community AME Church has a food pantry on the 1st and 3rd Saturdays of the month.

Now, unless I am drastically mistaken, North Carolina barbecue sauce is vinegar-based so I figured the 1 in 6 folks knew one of the key ingredients of my beloved potato chip style.

Looking at the ingredient list, I saw balsamic vinegar powder, balsamic vinegar, vinegar powder, white distilled vinegar, malic acid, and citric acid. These appeared to be the potato chip equivalent of Xenomorph blood. Would I lift the bag only to have the chips spill out from a hole in the bottom? Perhaps it has a special lining to keep from being eaten away.

I was impressed after sticking my face in the bag and taking a big whiff. Normally I get a noseful of fryer oil and, while these chips had a prominent oil aroma, I could also smell vinegar. How could I not with all those acids? They were a nice yellow color with an occasional brown area. The edges were generally dark but I am unsure if that's because the skin was left on or if there's some kind of fryer thermodynamics at play here where small surface areas brown quickly or some such thing.

These were kettle style chips and had a very nice crunch to them. A tasty, creamy potato flavor was bolstered by a firm saltiness. I've had saltier chips but most have less. The vinegar was much the same strength. A really nice tang was to be had and they were more sour than most chips but not quite in the very upper echelon of tongue numbing snacks.

Considering the various vinegars and acids on the ingredients list, I expected more puckering tang. Still, these were quite good chips that gave solid doses of salt and vinegar that are no doubt appreciated by all the Babe Winkelman types out there, in addition to our cat Grabby.