It feels like Utz's potato chips started showing up on Madison store shelves only fairly recently and in only limited flavors, one of those not being salt & vinegar. Very disappointing.
A couple two tree weeks ago I was in Boston and stopped in at a supermarket near my hotel, a Star Market, to get a dose of New England culinary culture. While I now see that the chain originated in the Boston area, they carried precious little that Massachusites, or Massholes, as I was later informed that denizens of The Bay State were to be called, produced. Perhaps I just didn't look in the correct aisles. Or Massachusites are too busy doing patriciany things to be bothered with slicing and frying potato chips.
What I did find, however, was the elusive Utz Salt 'n Vinegar chip. Utz is headquartered in southeast Pennsylvania so I guess it qualifies as a regional delicacy. I had an impromptu tasting in my hotel room.
Sticking my nose in the bag and taking a whiff, I was delighted to smell the aroma of fresh oil, some potato sweetness, and a not insignificant dose of vinegar tang. I poured some chips out on a plate and found them to be very thinly sliced and have that typical light yellow color with splotches of brown.
They had a nice crisp snap to them and a fine slightly sweet, earthy potato taste. The oil was not too strong and the vinegar flavor was firm. Better than firm. These were downright tangy! Very nice! They were fairly salty as well. Just a notch or two down from the Platonic idea of salt & vinegar chips that is Vitner's.
The funny thing is that there is no vinegar on these chips; no acetic acid. We've got the lactic, malic, citric, and fumaric types, though. But they do the trick and give your tongue a dose of zesty tang that approaches, but doesn't quite attain, the lethal.
I also see here the Vitner's is now part of the Utz megacorp. Maybe the chip architects for the different brands have no contact with one another. I also see that Utz has a pumpernickel pretzel which makes me sad because Snyder's of Hanover seems to have forsaken this wonderful flavor years ago and I have never seen Utz pretzels in Madison of any stripe.
Let us hope that Utz exports this flavor to Madison soon.
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