3w ago

Freaky Flavors

120 comments

Not enjoying salt & vinegar is just a sign of weakness
- *addiction to sugar ftfy

UK lemmings be piling in to explain how this is the best flavour in the world...
... Which it is
- I was always blown away by the wild chip flavors when I traveled to England as a kid. Monster Munch is a flavor unlike anything you can find stateside
  
  Monster Munch is a brand. They do a tangy pickled onion, roast beef, flaming hot, and a handful of others. Pickled Onion are incredible.
  
  I... feel like my entire life has been a hollow waste. 😆
  We Americans really have a near total dearth of flavors in our processed foods. It's been getting better over recent decades, but it's still just industrial flavorings. The flavoring is just something Americans invented to cover up a lack of nutrients in our food. These processed foods have the added bonus of spurring us to eat more because the food is so nutritionally empty, yet tastes like it should be nutritive. Ref: "The Dorito Effect" by Mark Schatzker.
  
  Speaking of wild chips flavors, have you guys tried ketchup chips? It's mostly sold in Canada and it sounds like it would taste awful, but it's actually pretty good.
  
  never liked monster munch as I don't like pickled onion but beef space raiders are great and they're the same sort of crisp if you've ever tried those
- nah prawn cocktails the best crisp flavour salt & vinegars alright too though I think I prefer pretty much any other flavour apart from bacon artificial bacon flavour is foul
  
  i'm still salty (and vinegary) over the fact UK is hogging the best crisp flavour which is indeed prawn cocktail. I need to go to the local "imported foods" store to get those and i'm at the mercy of my fellow countrymen to keep buying them so the store keeps restocking
  
  A prawn cocktailian? Here?
  Sir, I will have to ask you to step outside.
  
  As someone who always goes s&v I actually agree, however I have a couple s&v brands I really like, and have only been disappointed by prawn cocktail over the last decade. It used to be the best, but most crisp flavours have been getting more mild and losing their character and I think prawn cocktail has suffered this the most.

My home state has salt and vinegar chips that are so acidic that eating more than a handful will burn the inside of your mouth and the skin on the edge of your lips will fall off.
So anyway those are my favorite flavor ever and I eat so many every time I have the chance to eat them that I can't taste for a week.
Edit: I hate autocorrect. Always have.
- Here in NZ we have the regular salt and vinegar chips, but also the more intense vinegar and salt chips.
  I like the stronger ones, but too many makes my mouth feel like it is about to fall out.
- I suppose the fix is to find a basic drink to neutralize the acid before it burns your mouth?
  I can't think of any basic drinks...
  EDIT: Apparently, milk, tea, and certain juices are basic/alkaline.
  
  Pro tip: After vomiting, have a glass of milk (assuming you can keep it down). It'll neutralize the stomach acid burning your throat
  
  Basically most food is at least a bit acidic (even milk and tea) because it keeps better.

Can confirm, I like that flavour.
- Best flavor affirmative.

S&V was an unknown flavour in my country. So i was rather sceptical when I tried fries in the UK with that kind of seasoning for the first time.
I am a convert now. Anyone who considers this flavour "freaky" can go and drown in American ketchup (you know that kind with 50% HFCS).
- You tried chips in the UK btw
  
  I wanted to keep it readable for the American audience. Actually, I tried both: Crisps and Chips.
- Bro, both Ketchup and S&V are worse than salted. They taste so bad they actively lower the quality compared to no flavouring at all

I'm both of those things, so that checks out.

Hmm... in Canada that is one of the basic best selling flavours... you basically have to offer salt and vinegar if you sell chips. Is it really that uncommon in the states. I mean I heard it's hard to get ketchup flavour down there, but I wouldn't have suspected salt and vinegar as being rare.
- Nah salt and vinegar chips are also very popular in the US. But I'm not personally a fan, so I agree with the meme.
  As for ketchup flavored chips. I did not know that was a thing, you may be right about that.
  
  Yeah, ketchup is basically salt and vinegar but with sugar and "tomato" powder. So it's ultimately a bit milder than salt and vinegar.
  
  I've seen ketchup chips promoted as a "limited edition" flavor in the US.
- As an American fan of salt and vinegar chips, you’re never having a hard time finding them, but they’re not in the variety packs and if you bring them to a cookout without any other flavors you will get mean looks. Though really the only flavor other than plain that wouldn’t get you mean looks for only bringing it is barbecue (maybe jalapeño)

If you’re not gasping for air after inhaling on a freshly opened bag then they are not worthy

While they may co-occur, I think my enjoyment of Salt & Vinegar chips is independent of my freakiness and perversion
- Would you like to attend one of my salt and vinegar orgies?

Fixed it:
- I'm sure farsighted people appreciate this 🙏

TIL: I’m a freak and pervert
- Are you single? 😉

What freak doesn't like salt and vinegar?

My mom must've been one helluva freaky pervert then heh
- She really was.

TIL that I am also a freak.

Then I'm about to get my fuckin FREAK on.
opens a bag

Meanwhile in Lithuania:
- Yes for pink
- I believe these are potato and beet flavors.
  
  The first one is more like bacon and sour cream, but tastes a lot like cepelinai, Lithuanian potato dumplings.
  The second one is beet, green onion, cucumber, egg and kefir. So just like Lithuanian cold borcht (but a lot saltier).
  The same company had made pussy and penis flavoured chips too, but I have never tried those.
  
  Looks like specifically cold borshch flavour. So beets and yoghurt
  
  Why not have beet chips at that point? Like, from beet instead of potato. Its amazing

Not gonna lie I'll happily take being a freak if it means I've got an excuse to inhale salt and vinegar crisps until my eyes are watering from the flavour

Neuroatypical person when confronted with the existence of people with different opinions

salt and vinegar is the 2nd best flavour (behind all dressed of course)
- 80% chance this person is Canadian
- The heck kind of flavour is ‘all dressed’?
  
  ketchup, BBQ, sour cream and onion, and salt and vinegar all on one chip

True, I’m a freak and a pervert and the sort of person who has considered buying salt and vinegar powder because she loves the chips so much

Someone's looking for ways to stir Britannia to war, I see.
- Salt n vinegar is the moat in which the invaders fall before they have to climb the battlements of Prawn Cocktail
- Let him state his opinion in a public place in the UK, and then cut his remains out of the tree a few days later.

I started to angrily disagree but on reflection it's true, at least in my case.
- Same

Jokes on you, I'm into that!

I'm a proud member of both groups.

It is the best flavour by a country mile.

the only flavour that matters

What would Dill Pickle flavor be? It's just salt & vinegar chips with added dill flavor. But it's still better.
- Most of the stuff I try that's "dill pickle flavored" just tastes like dill. It's as if the marketing folks are afraid that consumers won't know what dill is, so you have to remind them that it's the pickle flavor.

I had it once.
It's disgusting. But I have to say... It grows on you.
I ate the whole bag including the crumbs.

Some of the UK ~~potato chip~~ crisp flavors I'm learning about are really freakin' weird to someone who comes from the land that invented them.
Prawn cocktail? Beef? Pickled onion?
And then there's this...
- prawn cocktail fucking slaps though
  
  For all I know, it is the greatest potato chip flavor in the world. America's range of flavors is surprisingly limited.
- You want weird? We also have fish flavored crisps.
  
  I mentioned prawn cocktail, but this is also weird for sure. I don't understand this one at all considering scampi is supposed to have a kind of subtle flavor to it, or at least in my experience, whereas potato chips are generally the opposite.
- crisps probably don't come from the US on the crisps wikipedia page in the history section it says
  The earliest known recipe for something similar to today's potato chips is in the English cook William Kitchiner's book The Cook's Oracle published in 1817, which was a bestseller in the United Kingdom and the United States. The 1822 edition's recipe for "Potatoes fried in Slices or Shavings" reads "peel large potatoes... cut them in shavings round and round, as you would peel a lemon; dry them well in a clean cloth, and fry them in lard or dripping".
  ...
  Early recipes for potato chips in the US are found in Mary Randolph's Virginia House-Wife (1824) and in N.K.M. Lee's Cook's Own Book (1832), both of which explicitly cite Kitchiner.
  A legend associates the creation of potato chips with Saratoga Springs, New York, decades later than the first recorded recipe.
  I skipped a bit with another early recorded version that was also from a british book but that's it
  I checked the book and it doesn't claim to have invented it it just presents it with all the other recipes but that could just be the style of cookbooks at the time I dunno I'm not a historian but eh proof enough that there's no evidence of them being american atleast and some evidence they're maybe british
  
  Fair enough, the Saratoga Springs story was what I had heard.
- They sound fucking delicious. Mackie's ice cream is top tier too.
  
  I'm not saying they're bad. Just weird.
  I haven't tried them.

Canadians. Is vinegar on french fries popular elsewhere?
- It's how fish and chips are traditionally served
- US here. They have malt vinegar out at 5 Guys, but that's the only time I eat fries with vinegar down here.
  
  Long John Silver's. Though the malt vinegar isn't necessarily for the fries. Shit, is LJS even still around? There was only one where I live and it's gone.
- it’s pretty popular in my house

It's the best flavor. Then it's all dressed, then queso ruffles

Do you realize you just insulted my entire race of people?!
But yes

Absolutely perfect with a pint of Guinness. Perfect.

Salt & vinegar goes amazingly well with onion dip.
- Now kiss.

when I was a kid, I was convinced that salt/vinegar combo was attractive to smokers because they'd burned out their ability to taste stuff unless it was extreme.
now I don't think it's limited to smokers, but all folks who have burned out their taste buds. Never liked them or sought them out, but:
Utz salt and vinegar are actually.... pretty fucking good, and that's a damned high praise from someone who doesn't like the flavor at all I think.
- It varies a lot but the chip brand too. As an adult, I don't like the brands I used to but I'm not sure if that's because they've changed or my tastes did. Given how many cheap or on recipes either is possible.
  But there are various brands of salt and malt vinegar that I really like now.
  Still liked the overall flavor both as a kid and an adult, but maybe I am a freak :-)
  
  Salt and vinegar is much better if you get anything other than Walkers.
  
  yeah I was surprised. it's fascinating how flavor prefs evolve over time too.

I've never had the fortune of trying salt and vinegar flavoured stuff. Seems like there's a really ardent fandom around it
- You've never eaten a pickle?
  
  Then it's not really salt and vinegar flavoured, it is salt and vinegar
  also pickles here are more spicy than salty
- whaaaaa? are you.. sure?
  
  about the fandom or whether I've had it?

Laughs in Canadian.

It's one of the best

Hey!!
...yeah.

Every fibre of my body repulses this flavour but I LOVE pure salt chips.
In Spain I was betrayed when I wanted "normal" salted ones and was confronted with the most disgusting taste a chip can possibly hold.
Never again..