I wanted a new chip, and for my sins, they gave me one.: Weston's Family Farms Sea Salt 'N' Vinegar Potato Chips

Last month I was taking my weekly walk through the organic junk food aisle at my local supermarket and saw plenty of salt and vinegar snacks. Making my way down the aisle I saw many that I had already sampled and felt a bit discouraged. Kind of like a sullen teenager convinced no one would ever find them attractive, I questioned whether a new salt and vinegar chip would ever appear at my local grocer.

As the rows of chips were about to give way to meat sticks, my eyes beheld bags of salt and vinegar chips from Weston's Family Farms, a brand hitherto unknown to me. Truly a blessing.

"Calbee" was printed above "Weston's Family Farms" and the interwebs tell me that it's a Japanese company founded in 1949 that expanded to the U.S. in 1970. The homespun, British name seems to be all marketing gimmick and a rather new one at that. It appears that the brand was introduced just last year. I could find no testimonials from a young farming couple about how chips from Lays, etc. induced allergic reactions in their children and so they decided to make wholesome junk food. Thankfully.

So how did the big multinational conglomerate do?

Ridges! Dark yellow with occasional brown bits, these chips were quite a bit thicker than your average potato chip. Sticking my proboscis into the bag and taking a big whiff, I smelled a lovely, earthy spud aroma followed by oil, and a saline scent.

Being thicker, these had a nice crunch to them that fell just below that of your typical kettle chip. The potato flavor was excellent - not particularly sweet with a very fine earthy taste. On the more teleological/important side, I didn't taste any more salt than normal and found them to have a medium tanginess which led to some mild numbness on my tongue after a serving.

If I have a quibble it's that, after chewing these chips, the paste was a bit mealy to my taste. Not enough to ruin my gustatory experience but definitely noticeable.

All in all, some very good chips.

Red dust on my Jethro Tull tee/Willow's pets turn all greasy: All In (Hot) by Rap Snacks

Man, just read those dope rhymes! I've got that progressive rock flow...

While I was quite disappointed to find Fried Shack closed when we walked into the BP at Northport and Troy Drive, I found a silver lining: two new varieties of salt & vinegar chips. Both came courtesy of Rap Snacks, the self-proclaimed official snack of hip-hop. Each bag had hip-hop star Lil Baby on the front and I had no idea who he is but have since learned that he's a hip-hop artist from Atlanta. (I did, however, recognize the visage of Snoop Dogg on the packaging of other flavors.)

These 2 flavors are of a piece so I am going to review both in one post. They are All In and All In Hot.

The "All In" bit refers to salt & vinegar, BBQ, onion, garlic, and "more" which leads me to believe it's a variation of the "All Dressed" flavor combo from our neighbors to the north which I just now see includes salt & vinegar. This revelation has expanded my chip purview. Are there All Dressed dips that I must now contemplate trying?

First up:

I was a bit disappointed to read the ingredients list and find no vinegar which leads to me wonder how they can get away with this deception. I suppose no one has brought this matter to the attention of the appropriate authorities (who probably are short-staffed and wouldn't look into it) or there was a disclaimer on the bag that I missed.

As it was, the chips had malic and citric acids.

My desk lamp and dark-colored desk all conspired to make these chips appear darker than the light yellow hue they were. A bit thicker than your average chip, they had a patina of orange or red dust. Brown edges were in abundance and the surfaces had some small bubbling. Sticking my nose in the bag and taking a whiff, it found a healthy paprika aroma - a slightly milder one than Jays Hot Stuff chips - along with oil and a bit of sweetness. I noticed lactose on the ingredients list.

These chips had a nice crispy-crunchiness to them which I'd like to taste in chips more often. Paprika and a smoky BBQ taste led the way. Those acids lent a firm tanginess which went well with what I felt was a little extra salt. As in the aroma, there was a noticeable sweetness but it was kept in check by all of the other more savory flavors. I found the onion and garlic to be rather faint.

While I'd vote for a bit less sweetness, Lil Baby's All In were some very tasty chips. The vinegary tang and the paprika were a great combination.

All In Hot had red to the packaging and cayenne pepper to the seasoning mix. Beyond these things, I didn't notice much of a difference when looking at the bag and the ingredients list.

Visually, the difference here from its milder cousin was more red dust. The chips definitely had a redder hue. The aroma was similar too but I caught a faint smokiness as a hint of the vinegar.

That delectable crispy-crunch was present here. The taste was largely the same as well but with some cayenne heat. They seemed less salty too and the garlic taste was bumped up just a bit. As before, no vinegar here - just malic and citric acids.

Ideally, each would be a little less sweet but, in the end, both of these varieties are very tasty. They had nice, firm tangs which I'd love to have been even tangier but so it goes. The combinations of salt & vinegar, BBQ, onion, garlic, cayenne, potato, oil, and whatever else they threw in just worked. Perhaps not a pure salt & vinegar chip but excellent nonetheless.

The Rap Snacks website shows that they have more salt & vinegar goodness on offer so I guess a return trip to that gas station is required.

Red dust on my Jethro Tull tee

Willow's pets turn all greasy

Lil Baby ain't got nothin' on me

But god damn his chips are tasty

We meet again, tallow: Sea Salt & Vinegar Kettle Style Potato Chips from Fat of the Land

Last week I made a quick mid-day run to Jenifer Street Market and saw these near the hot food display.

This was, in fact, the last bag of the salt & vinegar variety sitting near the steam trays that were keeping hotel pans of burnt ends and tater tot casserole at just the right temperature to keep the health inspector away. A cursory glance at the shelves as I walked through the junk food aisle revealed no further bags of this stuff but it was, after all, only a cursory glance.

It seems that chips fried in tallow is a trend, of sorts, as this is the third brand I've seen around town and, while I have not scoured the city for chips kissed with tallow goodness, I would presume there are others yet unknown to me to be had.

Fat of the Land is an Indianapolis company (see you in 2 months, Indy). Their website is pretty basic, which is not inherently bad, I suppose. It's one where their chips don't have pages dedicated to them explaining ingredients, cooking methods, and whatnot; they only have pages dedicated to buying them in bulk. And so the lone page I can find for these salt & vinegar chips offers little more than the ability to buy a 12-pack for $85.

Perhaps the company is working on a shoestring budget and is keeping things on the utilitarian side and so we don't get any ad copy about the wonderful tanginess to be had as they explode like a supernova on your tongue. Nor do we see the ingredients list which disappointingly features no vinegar powder nor any acetic acid. Instead the bag lists only citric and malic acids.

When I found this bag, I wondered when the anti-seed oil movement started. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it dates back to the late 1960s and has patiently bided its time in the (pot) smoke-filled backrooms of places like the Willy Street Co-op waiting for its chance to hit the mainstream. It only came into my consciousness last year when RFK was railing against them and they seemed to become moderately unfashionable, like gym shoes with velcro instead of laces.

I did a modicum (or less) of research into this and it seems that seed oils are not, in fact, pressed by Lucifer himself in Hell, contra RFK leading me to believe that making fats, whatever their source, a minor part of your diet is probably best.

I appreciated that the edges of these chips had retained the skin of the potato. The rest of the spud slices were light yellow and the perimeter of brown on each just somehow seemed to achieve a Golden Mean effect. Not all dark, not all brilliant. OK, a food aesthete I am not. In addition to being light yellow, the broad surfaces of these babies were riddle with bubbles. They were also sliced more thickly than your normal chip.

I stuck my nose in the bag and took a whiff several times and found that tallow was the most prominent smell but it wasn't particularly pungent unlike with the other brands of tallow-fried chips I've had. I could barely smell any spud and was not able to discern any tang-inducing acids whatsoever.

Tasting started well with a big crunch as I put a couple into my maw. They had a very nice earthy potato flavor and I found that a little extra salt had been applied. The tallow taste was very mellow and I was disappointed to find that there were only homeopathic levels of acidity to be had. Tanginess was more a vague sensation than a taste.

In almost every review of salt & vinegar snacks I have done, I make a quip about them needing more vinegar, more sourness. Rarely, if ever, has that sentiment been more true than here. It was bad enough that there was no vinegar used in making these "salt & vinegar" chips, but it seems they barely applied any citric or malic acid in its place.

These chips taste good and had a very fine balance of tallow and spud. However, I found that, in order to taste anything remotely tangy, I had to put a few into my mouth at once, chew them well, and move that glob of potato paste around my tongue to find that, uh, sweet spot, where I could taste sour.

See you in July, Indy. Now I need to find a place for a Hoosier sandwich.

From the Gourmands of the Tarheel State: Apple Cider & Balsamic Vinegar from The Gourmet Chip Company

It had been a fairly quiet spring on the salt & vinegar snack front until I stopped in at The Coffee Grounds up in Eau Claire earlier this month and found these.

I'd never heard of this The Gourmet Chip Company and was mildly disappointed that they are in North Carolina and not a local Eau Claire product. Someone tell Justin Vernon to invest in a potato chip company, stat! Still, they make a chip with salt & two kinds of vinegar so I'll let their choice of location slide. This time.

I looked at the TGCC site and, upon seeing the word "smoked", my salivary gland kicked into overdrive. They have Smoked Hops & Cheddar chips on offer. Color me intrigued. I don't recall seeing them up north but will be keeping my eyes peeled on my next visit.

The Ashevillan chip at hand, though, is TGCC's Apple Cider and Balsamic Vinegar Thick Cut Potato Chips. The bag says "ALL SPICES ARE GROUND & BLENDED in-house" which seemed a bit anti-climactic since we're talking salt and a couple vinegar powders. I presume that they're not actually concocting their own vinegar powders. The back of the bag invites the eater to imagine themselves at an Irish pub with a big plate of fried potatoes laced with vinegar.

Not a bad invocation of a far-off, exotic land. Fully 50% of the salt & vinegar chips I sampled from Ireland used the apple cider stuff. So how did the Tarheels do?

They weren't lying when they advertised these things as being thick(ly) cut. They appeared well fried as they had a dark yellow hue with surfaces laced with bubbles all over. As you can see, some of these bubbles were fairly large and even popped. There were some brown bits but the chips were, overall, of a yellow color. The aroma in the bag was mainly of roasty spuds and brought back childhood memories of my father making Bratkartoffeln to go along with his pork roast. The potatoes had a mostly earthy smell. A bit of vinegar and a dash of oil rounded out the olfactory part of my sampling.

Digging into my sample mini-platter, I found that the chips had a big, soggy crunch to them. Being thick(ly) cut, there's more potato matter to soak up the oil and, presumably, they are fried longer than your average chip. Although I detected no extra salt, they had a lovely fried potato flavor that was truly more like the stuff my dad used to fry up in a pan than a chip from a bag. At first the spuds tasted on the earthy side but took on sweetness after chewing a bit. The vinegar flavor was on the mild side but nonetheless it had a great taste with the balsamic in front.

As with most salt & vinegar chips, these could have used a more liberal application of vinegar. Still, they were excellent and stand apart from all the other brands I've had as they have a real Bratkartoffeln thing going.

The Pennywise of Potatoes: Mrs. Fisher's Salt & Vinegar Potato Chips

I have been a fan of the Dark potato chips from our neighbors in Rockford, IL, Mrs. Fisher's, for a while now. They just taste extra rich and roasty and I have lamented that I've never found a salt & vinegar chip from them. Until now. Or rather a recent shopping trip at the Woodman's in Sun Prairie.

For as long I have been a fan of their chips I have been a fan of their packaging as it features an anthropormorphic potato who knows a fine milliner dancing with a couple of kids. It's something of a Rorschach test as the look on the spud's face can be interpreted as being gay & mirthful or simply menacing. Personally I see it as the latter because, to my eyes, he looks like he's about ready to throw the children into a cauldron of hot oil and kettle fry them up before salting them down.

And I love the company motto: "VITA SEALD". Who needs that second E? The life essences of potatoes are sealed in each bag. Or the life essences of children? Hmm...

The bag notes that these chips are "thick sliced" (not thickly) and so they were. They were also of a fairly narrow diameter. By and large these chips were lightly colored - yellow - but there were brown bits to be had as well including an occasional brown edge. The surfaces were well-bubbled and featured plenty of large salt crystals which raised my blood pressure just by looking at them. They looked very deer-friendly. A delightful earthy-sweet potato flavor was up front on the nose followed by oil and a touch of vinegar. Usually oil is most prominent so this was a nice change of pace.

The thick cut yielded a nice, big crunch. Those salt crystals kicked up the salinity as expected and there was plenty of vinegar tang to match. Truth in labeling here. As for the potatoes, they provided a rich, earthy-sweet taste that I liked because it was earthy tasting first.

Mrs. Fischer's has another winner here. These are on par with Vitner's as far as the salt & vinegar go. Eating them I thought I was pickling my viscera. The difference is that these are thicker and crunchier than Vitner's. A very fine chip. Highy recommended.

The Salt & Vinegar Crisps of Éire - Part 4: They're just hunky dory

As I noted previously, while on a flight to Dublin I was told by a genuine Kerrygold eating, Guinness drinking Irishman what the best salt & vinegar crisps of Hibernia were.

His reply to my query about the best his country had to offer was "Tayto but the crinkled ones, not the regular ones." His accent gave the response an authoritativeness that a generic Midwestern one such as mine just could not muster.

Were they truly some pukka crisps?

Although I'd encountered Tayto crisps previously, this was their Hunky Dorys line - thicker, heartier crisps to tame manly appetites - and, unlike the previous crisps where cider vinegar reigned, these were made with malt vinegar.

I don't come across many crinkle cut salt & vinegar chips here. Surely the thicker cut and those crinkles must add more surface area that can accommodate even more vinegar dust than your normal crisp/chip. If only someone could invent a slicer that would yield chips in non-Euclidian shapes. Just think of all the magical vinegar dust they could hold! Lovecraft Snacks, LLC.

These crisps had a nice yellow hue with bits of brown on the edges. They appeared to have skin on them. Thick and crinkley as advertised. Sticking my face in the packet and taking a whiff I smelled a firm vinegar tang, the rich, greasy aroma of oil, and a faint bit of potato on the sweet side.

As expected they had a nice crunch as well as a good, firm tanginess. No need to eat a dozen chips to get an acetic burn on my tongue. They also tasted a bit saltier than normal and I suppose this can be attributed to the extra surface area. As for the potato flavor itself, it was rich & creamy and on the sweet side. 

I think my guide to the crisps of Éire was correct. These were the best. I adored the big malt vinegar tang and the thicker cut gave a big, creamy burst of spud flavor.

 

Well played Tayto megacorp.

 

Hopefully I will have the opportunity to sample more Irish salt & vinegar crisps some day.

The Salt & Vinegar Crisps of Éire - Part 3: Aggressively Pomaceous

The brand name "simply roasted." made me think of the movie Dazed & Confused. Should I eat these at 4:20?

These may have been the first lifestyle crisps I encountered on my trip. (I shall find out when I review the crisps I sampled in Britain.) They're roasted in "one-of-a-kind ovens" and so they have less fat and fewer calories than your typical deep fried crisp. In addition, their website boasts about sustainable business practices such as powering the crisp factory with solar, converting leftover cooking oils into aviation fuel, and so on.

I should note that these aren't Irish crisps, but rather English ones found in an Irish airport. They're made across the Irish Sea in Norfolk.

Given all of this, how did the roasted salt & vinegar crisps taste?

Let's begin with how they looked which was yellow with some brown patches. They appeared to have had the skin left on as the edges were uniformly brown. Without my calipers I couldn't be sure but they seemed to be cut a tad more thickly than their common American counterparts. The aroma was oil, followed by cider vinegar, and then a bit of sweet spud in the background.

These crisps were nice and crunchy. At first a sweet potato flavor predominated but it was followed by some mild vinegar tanginess. After I chewed some crisps into a paste the potato flavor took on some earthy tones. Although there was a paucity of vinegar zip, there was no shortage of its flavor as these puppies had a wonderful, firm cider vinegar taste. My notes say that I may have tasted sherry but I cannot recall if I tasted it before or after reading the ingredients which includes sherry vinegar powder. No doubt the addition of apple powder boosted my perception of the cider vinegar.

Although they were roasted and not deep fried, I couldn't tell the difference. What made these crisps stand out for me was the prominent apple/cider vinegar taste which was just delicious.

The Salt & Vinegar Crisps of Éire - Part Dhá: I go megacorp

One thing you won't see on a bag of salt & vinegar potato chips here in America is text in Irish Gaelic.

When I first got into the Dublin airport and began making my way to immigration to get my passport stamped, I saw a sign and didn't understand a word of it. Were my glasses dirty? Had my eyes suddenly gone bad? No, it was just in Irish. I was used to signs at airports in Spanish and Hmong but not Irish. 

Tayto is a much less posh sounding brand name than O'Donnells of Tipperary but my packet of salt & vinegar crisps were apparently made in a castle that long predates the founding of the United States which is pretty damn cool if you ask me. That castle is in Northern Ireland while O'Donnells are made in Ireland Ireland.

Google says that Tayto is the biggest brand over there, their Lays, I guess you could say, and I get the impression that the company is either not Irish-owned or is a subsidiary of a non-Irish company. But I don't trust AI.

How did megacorp do?

The crisps were a rather bright yellow but had many nicely browned edge bits. It seemed that the diameter of the crisps was on the small side and they were thinner than a typical American kettle chip but not as thin as your standard American chip. The surfaces were home to a fair number of bubbles. Putting my nose in the packet and taking a big sniff, I got a goodly dose of vinegar - hooray! - as well as some oil and a faint aroma of potato on the sweet side.

I found that they had a restrained crunchiness to them - less than the aforementioned American kettle chip yet more than your standard Lays chip. The aroma was a harbinger of the flavor which had a good, firm tanginess. It didn't seem extra salty to me but I did like the sweet-earthy balance of the potato taste.

These were some fine crisps. I appreciated the boost in vinegar tang and caught a flavor like barley that came with a hint of sweetness. The label did say that it may contain barley and I do not recall if I tasted barley after reading the label or before. My inclination is before based on my tasting notes. Again, rosemary extract was used as an anti-oxident. And again the oils were sunflower and rapeseed.

Large corporation or not, these were very tasty.

The Salt & Vinegar Crisps of Éire - Part 1: It's a long way to Tipperary

It's a long way to go for crisps

As we waited for take-off from O'Hare, I struck up a conversation with the gentleman to my right. He appeared to be in his mid-30s and was a ginger who spoke with a decidedly Irish accent. Our flight was to Dublin and I discovered that he was returning to his home in the suburbs of Ireland's capital from a holiday in Chicago. I learned that he had lived in my hometown for a few years but had moved back to Ireland so we were able to talk about Chicago and the U.S. more broadly in some depth. Ireland, however, was a different matter.

I fessed up that all I really knew about his homeland was The Troubles, Guinness stout, Kerrygold butter, and, taking the piss, Lucky Charms cereal. Fortunately he had a good sense of humor and, if his fellow countrymen and women have senses of humor as dry as his, I will enjoy spending time in Ireland. He was quite surprised that I knew of Kerrygold and when I told him that it was available in my little city of 300,000 people he beamed with pride and bragged that it was the best butter on the planet.

I gave him my story about going to Britain for pleasure to see IQ and that one of my goals was to eat as many salt & vinegar crisps as I could get my grubby little hands on. He then offered the brand of his favorite and I vowed to keep an eye out for it with the earnestness of a new seminary student as I do not take salt & vinegar crisp recommendations lightly.

About 9 hours later I saw bags of them on display at the Dublin airport as I made my way to another gate to catch my flight to Birmingham. Although severely tempted to grab one and enjoy some salty, tangy goodness, I refrained thinking that I'd be able to find my fellow flyer's favorite in England. Birmingham is, after all, Britain's second largest city. Surely they'd be on sale somewhere; Tess would cooperate with me on this.

Wrong!

And so, on my return trip, I scoured the shelves of a WHSmith at the Dublin airport and bought every salt & vinegar crisp I could find - four (4) of them, including the recommended brand.

This is the story of one of them.

I think "O'Donnells of Tipperary" is a fine name for a crisp. It just sounds classy and maybe even a little aristocratic. (The American equivalent might be the much lamer "Lays of Plano".) Although the crisps have only been made since 2010, the company owner's family has been farming longer than the United States has been a country. Does Irish cider vinegar taste different from British or American cider vinegar?

The crisps were actually a bit darker than you see in the photo. More of a medium yellow with a tinge of tan. Edges were frequently brown while the surfaces were strewn with bubbles. They were cut more thickly than the average American chip. Taking a whiff from the packet, I smelled oil and a hint of potato that was on the sweet side.

That thickness yielded a big, loud crunch. Vinegar flavor, er, flavour was fairly mellow and I didn't taste any extra salt. On the plus side, these crisps had a really nice cider vinegar flavor and I found that the tanginess built up to a more desirable level after munching on several of them. They also had a very delectable spud taste that had a nice earthy-sweet balance.

While I would prefer these crisps get more vinegar, I enjoyed them greatly and appreciated their nice, hearty potato taste.

Oils on the label were sunflower and rapeseed (apparently we call this stuff canola) and I also spied "sea salt flavour" which flummoxes me. Also on the label was rosemary extract used as an anti-oxident. Immediately upon reading that, I started tasting rosemary on the chips. Not an unpleasant experience but I am unsure if it was genuinely present or just my brain messing with me.

Eat beef or die: Beefy's Own Salt N' Vinegar Beef Tallow Potato Chips

I think Beefy's Own is a fine name for a potato chip. Something right out of The Simpsons.

These chips are from New Hampshire and do not have a backstory involving children who cannot eat normal snacks fried in seed oils. Instead the family behind the brand just didn't want to eat seed oils.

What is it with all the negative press for seed oils? It seems like whenever Americans adopt some kind of dietary prohibition, there are cultures without it that have people living to 100 routinely.

This the second beef tallow chip I've encountered and I found it, like the first, at Woodman's. However, these were in a clearance cart. Perhaps people are supporting local tallow chips more than those from the Granite State.

I give Beefy's Own high marks for packaging as A) the bag has a flat bottom so it stands upright and B) the bag is resealable. 

While I am on the subject of packaging, why is it that salt & vinegar chips come in bags that have a lot of blue on them? If a small section of the labeling is given over to the flavor while the rest of the bag is the same for all flavors, salt & vinegar is blue. The vast majority of salt & vinegar chips are denoted via blueness. How did blue become the color of vinegar? Where is Uncle Cecil when you need him? 

The first thing I noticed when opening the bag and peering inside was that these are some large diameter chips. I don't think I ran across a small one my whole tasting. These are some manly chips! They were also thicker than normal. Extra manly! As color goes, these chips were a lovely light tan with some occasional brown spotting. As with Teddy's tallow chips, bubbles were not prominent. At least not large ones.

Beefyness was first to be smelled. That smell, that tallow smell. The potato aroma was on the sweet side and the vinegar was rather faint and required some deep inhalation to be noticed.

Given their thickness, the chips had crunch but it was slightly soggy. It starts off well but my bite got bogged down rather than finishing with a snap. They had a nice tallowy taste but Beefy went very easy on the salt. Not only was there no extra, these seemed to not even have your average dose. Weird. The vinegar tanginess was rather mellow and the spud tasted sweet.

Aside from some smart packaging, I give Beefy's Own credit for a snack that doesn't read like a chemistry textbook. Just spuds, tallow, salt, and white distilled vinegar.

But these chips needed more salt and more vinegar. They were fine, just a bit uninspired.

Tallow, tallow, give it to me, give it to me: Teddy's Vinegar Vibe Tallow Chips

When I first saw these chips, I immediately began singing Porcupine Tree's "Shallow" in my head with the song's title replaced by "tallow". Personally, I think Steven Wilson would be proud to have his radio-friendly riff rocker in a mashup with rendered beef fat. 

I found these Teddy's Tallow Chips in the organic/artisanal junk food aisle at Woodman's. Since buying this bag I have discovered a second brand of tallow fried chips laden with salt and vinegar there which makes me wonder if tallow chips are having their micro-moment of trendiness.

The brand has a story not unlike that of Jackson's: Katherine Horvath found that her son Teddy had severe food allergies so he couldn't eat most snack foods. Mom then tested various options and found that her son could eat potato chips friend in tallow without a reaction.

Oddly enough, Teddy's, like Jackson's, hails from suburban Milwaukee - Cedarburg, in this case.

Tallow, in case you were wondering, is rendered beef fat. That is, beef fat cooked slowly so that, upon melting, the fat can be separated from any non-fat bits. 

The bag had "Subtle Tang" on the front so I wasn't expecting a vinegar overload. Still, I looked forward to trying these as I had never had tallow fried chips.

I found them to be of a darker hue of yellow and brown spots were not uncommon. They had been very thinly sliced and looked fragile. I didn't spy many bubbles on the surface of the chips. I read that tallow has a high smoke point and wonder if one fries chips at the same temp in tallow as seed oils. Being thin means less cooking time so perhaps this accounts for the lack of bubbling.

The aroma was beefy with an earthy spud scent beneath.

Crisp and tallowy is how my notes say they tasted. I think they went easy on the salt but the salinity increases the further down the bag you go. The bag did not lie as I found them to have a subtle tang as advertised. The potato flavor was sweeter than the aroma.

It would have been interesting to have tasted Teddy's chips not knowing they were friend in tallow. Would I have picked up on the animal fat? These really do have an earthy, beefy flavor to my tongue. Seed oils give a "cleaner" flavor, one that is sharper, maybe? Less earthy.

These were very tasty chips though I would have preferred more tanginess.

Bringing balance to the humble potato chip: Humble Sea Salt & Cider Vinegar Potato Chips

So we're back to last fall with this selection.

Humble Chips hails from Ontario, Canada and so I thought it odd to find their products at the Willy Street Co-op which prides itself on local foods and tries to minimize stocking foods that use a lot of fossil fuel to get to their stores. I guess the organic on the label trumped other concerns. Or perhaps Humble has an American potato chipery.

These were, if I recall correctly, my first cider vinegar chips in a while. Not the first to have cider vinegar flavor in the mix but where it's prominent and right there on the front of the bag. It seems a very autumnal flavor though available year-round. 

The color on these chips ran the gamut from yellow to light tan and had some nice browning on the edges. Although thinly sliced, they had rather large diameters. I loved the earthy potato aroma which stood apart from the oily scent. However, my nose detected little to no vinegar.

In addition to being of the fairly rare cider vinegar family, these were also the first non-kettle cooked chips I'd had in a while. And so they were indeed as the label said - light and crispy. While there was no extra salt to be had, the potatoes did have a wonderfully earthy taste which was complemented well by the cider vinegar flavor. The problem was that, although there was plenty of cider vinegar taste, I found them to be rather mild with only a modicum of tanginess.

I suppose this is not surprising as the Humble website describes these chips as a "balanced take on a classic." My disappointment concedes that the Humble folks were honest.

Not as sour as I'd like them, but these chips had a very good flavor.

Faith, hope and spuds: Ole Salty's Kettle Cooked Salt & Vinegar Potato Chips

If memory serves, I found this bag of Ole Salty's chips at the Mobil at Aberg and Shopko Drive early one morning at around 1:30 back in January. I was on my way home and thirsty so I figured I'd make a quick stop for a soda or something I didn't have at home. One stroll through the chip aisle later, I walked out with a new brand of salt & vinegar snacking adventure ahead.

 

 

The next day I took a look at the bag in daylight and found that Old Salty's is in Rockford, Illinois, the home of Mrs. Fisher's potato chips. Rockford punches well above its weight when it comes to potato chips. There's a fellow on the label who reminds me of someone from the Pink Panther cartoon wearing rain gear. Also on the bag is Biblical verse, 1 Corinthians 13:13:

 

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

 

I read it as "But the greatest of these is spuds." 

 

The chips were fairly lightly colored though brown spots were common. I guess they were mostly cut from fairly narrow gauge spuds as the chips were generally small and dainty. However, they did appear thicker than normal. Oil of the soybean variety came first in my sniff test. Spud came next with a hint of vinegar bringing up the rear.

 

A healthy crunch was to be had and I found that these were the first salt & vinegar chips in a while that actually tasted like there was more salt on them than you normally get on a potato chip. The vinegar flavor came with a moderately strong tanginess to it while the potato flavor was more earthy than sweet, my preferred ratio. The oil wasn't a prominent taste for my tongue but it did catch a little roastiness which was delicious.

 

God smiled upon the Tater Chicks 815, LLC, who manufactured these chips as they were very tasty. They simply hit all the right notes for me - earthy potato flavor, more salt, and a good, firm vinegar zip. Highly recommended.

No tang, man: Salt & Vinegar Kettle Cooked Potato Chips by Pop Daddy

Another review delayed. The photo is dated early December of last year. I honestly do not recall where I found these chips but, given the date, I suspect they were bought somewhere in Chicagoland.

Pop Daddy is a Michigan company, Howell, to be precise, which looks to be about halfway between Detroit and Lansing. Their "About Us" section says the company was founded by folks looking for healthier junk food, essentially. Ha!  

The chips' webpage uses phrases such as "Sharp, tangy" and "bring the zing". I just found these words and so had no tangy, sour preconceptions about these chips going in.

Not a bad photo. I think the preponderance of red helped my cheap camera to not wash the color out with its auto-enhancers from Hades. These chips were thick and had nicely browned edges, though I couldn't tell if it was because the skin was left on or from the cooking process. The surfaces of the chips were densely packed with bubbles. Overall color was a fairly deep yellow but dotted with brown spots. Many of the chips were curled up into non-Euclidean snack shapes.

The aroma in the bag was big on oil and followed by some spud and then a hint of vinegar.

These puppies had a nice, big crunch to them. The potato flavor was on the sweet side and, being thick kettle chips, the oil flavor was prominent. Salt levels were normal. There was a medium vinegar taste to the chips but my tongue didn't register much tanginess which I thought to be really odd. Odd as in preternaturally weird.

Consulting the label I found malic acid, citric acid, vinegar solids, apple cider vinegar solids, and tartaric acid. Given this lengthy list it seems inconceivable that these chips didn't A) have a stronger vinegar taste and B) have more of a tangy zip to them.

As they were, I wished that the spuds had more of an earthy flavor to them, a fairly minor gripe, as, overall they had a nice, vinegary taste. But there was virtually no tang. The mind reels. Their website's description beggars belief.

I'm going to (eat) Jackson('s): Jackson's Kettle Cooked Sea Salt & Vinegar potato chips

Where did I find these? Woodman's? At least my tasting happened this year and not last fall. Playing catch-up - slowly but surely.

This sampling happened last month.

Jackson's! 

Besides a different taste, is there something beyond gimmickry to frying in avocado oil? Is it healthier? Better for the environment? I guess it's not a seed oil which found themselves being demonized for reasons I do not comprehend not that long ago. Avocado oil isn't cheap so perhaps using it is supposed to give a "premium" vibe - chips for the well-heeled.

Here's the company's story, in brief.

Megan and Scott Reamer's son, Jackson, was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder and they found that a high-fat diet rich in "premium fats" benefited him. Aha!

I also see here that it's a Wisconsin company. They're in Muskego, part of the greater Milwaukee area and I like to support my local chipsmitheries. 

The camera on my phone auto-boosts brightness and either has a lousy auto-white balance or it f***s with color. I have turned off every photo enhancement setting I can find yet many photos, especially those with bright colors, end up slightly washed out. So apologies for the photo.

The chips were actually of a medium dark yellow not the near white you see above. There were some brown edges and minimal bubbles. They were cut thicklier than your normal chip. I was happy to catch a big vinegar aroma, so much so, in fact, that it hurt my nose. "A good portent," I thought to myself. Potato came next with oil trailing in third. Very odd. Oil is usually the primary smell. "Another good portent," I figured.

They were crunchy as I expected considering their thickness. Plus they were kettle cooked. I was surprised that the potato flavor was way out front with a nice sweet-earthy balance. Salt level seemed average while the vinegar tang was medium-light, a disappointment considering it was so prominent a smell and had caused me some mild olfactory distress.

My notes end with "Fine but needs more tang."

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.

Casey's you better watch your spuds: Casey's Salt & Vinegar Kettle Potato Chips

Last fall I made a trek south for reasons I cannot recall. I just remember that I ended up at the Duluth Trading Co. outlet store in Belleville, about 20 miles south of Madison. Perhaps that was my destination - to get some new shorts.

So I bought a couple pairs of shorts and a vest and then drove around a spell during which I spied a Trachte building. Before heading home, I stopped in at the Casey's on River Street. (Is there more than one in town?) There I did a stroll down the junk food aisle and happened up their house brand of salt & vinegar chips. I eagerly busted the bag open upon my return.

They were slightly darker than most chips - a nice tan hue. It seemed the skin was left on as the edges were lined with brown. Although I didn't pull out my calipers, these chips were thicker than normal. Sticking my nose in the bag and taking a sniff, I got a big whiff of oil while the vinegar was pleasantly pungent. The spud smell was rather faint, however.

Their thickness and/or kettle preparation gave these chips a massive crunch. I think my skill vibrated while taking my first bite, good sign, I felt. They tasted a bit oily, initially, but a potent vinegar tang made itself known and I found that it had brought its salty friend. With enough chips in my maw chewed to a paste, I found that I could taste a nice, earthy spud flavor.

These chips were an unexpected find and an unexpected pleasure. I adored all the tangy goodness and appreciated the elevated level of salt. Plus the potato taste was, er, tasty. More earthy than sweet.

Some very fine chips, here.

You've got to have goals in life

One of my goals on my UK trip was to sample as many salt & vinegar crisps as I could. I think I was able to chow on eight different varieties over there and then grabbed four more at the airport in Dublin. Many thanks to the Irish guy on the plane who shared his favorite with me.

By the third day I was off to a good start.

I would also like to note that cheese & onion crisps are really tasty too. 

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.

A Salt & Vinegar Miscellany XVIII: From Chicago's south side

On a tour of the Englewood neighborhood in Chicago, our group stopped at one of the few true grocery stores in the area, Go Green Community Fresh Market. Some of the friendliest staff you'll find at any store, grocery or otherwise. It is fairly small - it's not a supermarket - but I managed to find a novel salt & vinegar snack:

Yes! Popcorn. Not only that, cheese popcorn! The stuff is made by Richard's Super Premium Ice Cream, a black-owned business, down in Pullman. My mother and I stopped in after our Pullman tour and I enjoyed a dish of perhaps the oddest flavor of the frozen treat I've ever eaten: greens & cornbread. I know that the idea of greens in ice cream seems highly incongruous, to say the least, but trust me, it was good.

Onto the popcorn.

Richard's did not skimp on the artificial yellow dye #5 as the kernals were a brilliant orangey yellow. Taking a big sniff with my nose firmly planted inside the bag, I found that the nuggets of goodness smelled of cheese popcorn at first before a firm tanginess came up seemingly out of nowhere.

This stuff wasn't exactly the freshest popcorn so let's get that out of the way to start. It tasted like very cheesy popcorn with a not insignificant acidic tang. A very nice contrast between the smooth cheese powder and the lactic acid. Delicious!