"potato-chip" news and stories

Here's an indication of how chip-centric my life's been lately -- last night on the subway home from work, a man stepped onto the train, and from 10 or so feet away, I could tell, just by spotting a smidge of the bottom corner of his chip bag, that he was enjoying some Deep River Snacks Olive Oil & Rosemary Potato Chips. I've tasted well over 150 varieties of plain and flavored chips in the past two months (and have learned to rely on plain lettuce for all my other sustenance), but in the taste test linked below have no doubt skipped over one of your faves. I wanna know which ones they are, so please shout it out in the comments section. List of chips is after the jump.

Flavored Potato Chip Taste Test

Plain Potato Chip Taste Test

At AOL Food, we are currently conducting a flavored potato chip taste test. In order to ensure that we received a national breadth o' crispy taters, we hooked up with Anchor's Chip of the Month Club, and man alive did those chiphounds deliver! Among their mysterious inclusions, I found California Chips' "Earthquake" Potato Chips.

Earthquake? Um, huh? My mind went in a couple directions:

1. These chips are actually plain (erroneously placed in the "flavored box"), but they have such a hardcore crunch that when you bite down, your teeth and skull shatter, much like your Grandma's Ming during an earthquake.
2. These chips are so obscenely spicy that the burning tongue'n'throat pain can only be accurately captured with comparisons to undue destruction. (Although in that case, a more apropos disaster descriptor might have been "1871 Great Chicago Fire.")
3. These chips are flavored with sedimentary salt and damp peppercorns, evoking an air of rubble and must.
4. These chips are, simply, naturally disastrous.

It wasn't until a co-worker suggested, "Maybe it just means that a bunch of spices are all shaken together, like an everything bagel." Oh. Well isn't she rational! Rational and, as it turns out, correct.

According to California Chips, Earthquake is "a mixture of several of our most popular flavors all together." Indeed, upon braving the Earthquake, I discover the smoky sweetness of Honey Barbecue, the slight bite of Creamy Chipotle, the cool herb of Sour Cream & Onion, and the tongue-tingle of Salt & Vinegar - all sublimated into one deliciously nonsensical flavorsphere. For someone like me, who doesn't discriminate against any chip flavor, these Earthquake chips will make grocery shopping a breeze. But I still maintain they need a more appropriate name. Like "Stonehenge."

For more on potato chips, make sure to head over to AOL Food's Potato Chip Taste Test.

Source

Do you have a food that came to symbolize a period of time in your life? For me, that would be Zapp's potato chips. The chips came to be a symbol of my college years, and all the time I spent hanging out with friends in local bars.

Before I started going to the bars downtown, I had never heard of Zapp's. Those chips just happened to be ubiquitous to the bars in Athens, GA, where I went to college. However, as they were the some of the only food available at the bars, I did munch down my fair share of them. The chips, with names like Spicy Cajun Crawtators and Cajun Dill Gator-tators, are pretty good, though not the best. The flavors are on the unique side and they are always nice and crunchy.

I haven't had Zapp's in a very long time. I've had them since graduating from college, but I don't eat much in the way of potato chips as part of my long term health goals. Even though I don't eat them, just seeing a bag takes me back to the good times I had, hanging out with friends at the local pub. Do you have a food memory like this?

For years, I avoided potato chip flavors other than the occasional dip into sour cream & onion. And then I found Miss Vickie's, which have quickly become my guilty flavorful snack. Instead of just the classic concoctions, the Canadian brand looks outside the box with combinations like lime with pepper, roasted red pepper grill, sweet chili with sour cream, and my simple favorite: Honey and Roasted Garlic.

I half love this brand because the flavors are so intense that it keeps me from eating more than a handful or two. But that's not quite the case with the honey/garlic variety. It's an incredibly smooth-flavored chip that has the potent taste of garlic that's cut with the vaguely there sweetness of honey. If you're a garlic fiend, these chips should be crispy, garlicy heaven.

Merge that with some tasty dip or maybe some sharp cheddar, and the whole thing is even better.

The last time I was in Boulder, I spent most of the time in the hospital with a broken elbow. I fell off of a horse because the saddle was not properly tightened. The main thing that kept me happy in all my pain was Glacier Ice Cream. You didn't think I was going to say the potato chips, did you? That ice cream was some of the best ice cream I've ever had. Please, Glacier, open one in St. Louis! Oh, right, I'm not a fan of chains. I forgot for a second there.

I discovered Boulder Canyon potato chips not in Boulder but in an incredible locally owned general store in St. Louis (hopefully I redeemed my support for local business with that comment). I wanted to pick up some chips to try as part of AOL's upcoming flavored chip taste test and Boulder Canyon Sea Salt and Cracked Pepper Chips met two basic criteria:

1. They were all natural. I would normally buy organic chips, but the shop didn't have any organic ones.
2. Sea salt and cracked pepper is a flavor that my husband loves. This is particularly important since I don't eat many chips. If he didn't like them, the chips would live to be old and soggy.

How did my husband and I like the chips? At first, I thought they were too spicy (I might still think they are too spicy), but I can't stop eating them. More importantly, my husband loved them! The bag is almost empty. Danger: do not keep an open bag of these anywhere near where you will be working or watching TV.