A Salt & Vinegar Miscellany XX: Extrude this!

Another one from last fall. I am really behind in my salt & vinegar snack reviews.

Lay's strikes again.

Stax are Lay's newfangled answer to Pringle's, apparently. Potato paste extruded into a mould. Not really my thing but I will give any salt & vinegar snack a tasting at least once.

These Stax thingies are all uniform in shape - and color too: yellow with the odd tan area. I was surprised to find that they had a big vinegar smell to them but this was followed by a reconstituted potato aroma - like instant mashed potatoes.

Putting one into my mouth, I was surprised again but this time it was their crunch. Pringle's are crispy but these had crunch. Maybe they're thicker than Pringle's. I didn't find them to be saltier than your average potato chip food product and was highly unsurprised to find that they had that instant mashed potato flavor. Lactose and malic acid gave them a solid medium dose of tang.

While I appreciated the firm tanginess here, the spud flavor was found lacking.

A Salt & Vinegar Miscellany XVIV: Two snacks enter, one snack leaves

These Poppable thingies remind me of a cage mask that you'd see in a Mad Max movie.

Cundalini wants his snack back!

Poppables are these oval grid patterned snacks from Lay's. They are made from dehydrated potatoes but vinegar is on the ingredient list.

They have a nice maize yellow color and I got a big dose of vinegar when I took a sniff of the bag. The inside, that is.

I found them to be light and crispy with a nice, firm vinegar tang. My tongue did not reel in pain but neither was it left wanting. The potato flavor reminded me of taking leftover mashed potatoes, forming globs into patties, and gently reheating them in a frying pan.

Not awful. I enjoyed the vinegar taste but the reconstituted potato flavor was thoroughly mediocre.

Getting Lay'd: A Twofer from Lay's

Joe "Spud" Murphy and his conspirators at Tayto may have invented the seasoned potato chip but it seems that Lay's now dominates the potato chip world. It is a very large corporation that is a subsidiary of an even larger and multinational conglomerate, PepsiCo. They have a vast array of flavors that span many cuisines of the world meant to appeal to local tastes around the globe.

The food alchemists there are kept busy updating their grimoire of potato chip seasonings as they endeavor to bring flavors suggested by consumers to the humble potato chip as part of a contest. Thusly in years past you saw flavors like Southern biscuits and gravy, cappuccino, and gyro on your store shelves. Last year they produced chips modeled after dishes from iconic restaurants, though I admit I'd never heard of any of those establishments. I've gotta get out more, I guess. The tongue can be tempted according to nature or against nature and these were certainly of the latter disposition. The carnitas street tacos and Philly cheesesteaks at El Torito and Geno's Steaks, respectively, are no doubt delightful but their analogs in the potato chip world were just gross.

If you're in the Madison area and want a tuberous taste out of the ordinary, Woodman's on the west side carries a smattering of English crisps (or did the last time I was there) while various ethnic grocery stores carry some unique flavors. An Indian grocery store I was at had Lay's India's Magic Masala flavored chips, for example.

But I am here to write about a flavor more familiar to most of us in Madison, the humble salt & vinegar chip. I wouldn't doubt for a second that Lay's has many iterations of this flavor for sale worldwide but, from my vantage point in here Madison, I've only seen their Salt & Vinegar and Kettle Cooked Sea Salt & Vinegar chips.

Going in I figured that A) these chips would be basically the same with the big, if not only, difference being that the kettle cooked variety would be crunchier. And B) they'd both have a mellow vinegar tang because the unwashed masses wouldn't be keen on a prominent sour flavor.

The regular Lay's smelled like roasted potatoes to me while their kettle kin smelled like French fries with a hint of vinegar. As expected, the common chip was thinly sliced and had a wonderful delicate crispness. The kettle ones were similarly sliced and had a bit of that crunchiness but not a lot. They were still rather light. Each had had salt applied modestly.

The regular chips had a fair amount of vinegar on them as they tasted rather tangy, coming up just short of what might reasonably be described as "assertive". I was genuinely surprised at how much vinegar flavor there was. For their part, the kettle chips had just a tiny bit less. Regular Lay's had a mellow, earthy potato taste with just a little sweetness while the kettled tasted like French fries. That is, a similar taste but with a more intense potato flavor to it.

Both varieties were very tasty and could have used a bit more vinegar. The regular ones had the perfect crispness that keeps you coming back for more while the French fry-like taste of the kettle chips was rather novel and I enjoyed their hearty spud taste.