Crusticroc Snack Balls Jalapeño-Cheddar

After immense difficulty
I finally found a website
with a pic of the bag
titled Sack Balls .

I’m juvenile enough to find any junk food called ‘snack balls’ automatically hilarious, and of course, detailing that they are made out of spicy cheese is an open invitation to sophisticated humor of the South Park variety.  The Buck Rogers style retro Sci-Fi title adds a delightful kitsch factor to what I can only anticipate to be yet another mediocre product from discount snack-food producer Crusti Croc (a store brand of Lidl.)

If every episode of South Park featured
mutant laser-spear toting sea otters
mounted on ostriches in the ruins of
NYC, I would become a regular viewer.

But nein, the canny German proletariat-feeders at Lidl have in fact formulated an eccentric work of mad (though by no means refined) genius, not unlike their well-documented plot to raise a zombie army to win World War II.  The Corn-Puff Balls are extra-large- about an inch in diameter each- are satisfyingly lumpy and crunchy, and feature a reasonable amount of chewy inner density to make for a snack which floods the mouth with pleasing flavor.

Agent Blaskowicz's escape from Castle
Wolfenstein played a critical role
in the defeat of the Nazi Zombietruppen.

            Now the seasoning itself is no way ‘life-like’ or ‘sophisticated’, and yet is ‘powerful spicy’, as they say in Gone with the Wind, and quite effectively infused with jalapeño.  Unlike far too many other snack foods, there is no lack of flavor, and an extra salty, super-picante experience awaits your mouth for each crackling snack ball you suck into your saliva-gushing maw like a Tyranid Mawloc. 

Mawlocs may not mouth off as much as
your teenage son or a Sandworm of Arrakis
but their gullets do seem to moistly slaver
more gratuitously.  Painted by C-Bomb13.

Unfortunately, the flavor-sensation is rather marred by an undeniable degree of over-saltiness, and fondness for drinking salt water may be a prerequisite for extended eating of these cash-concession corn-puff confections.  The saltiness also rather obscures the cheese flavoring, but overall I found this shortcoming of the Snack Balls rather tolerable when weighed against the lightning those joy-spheres were packing, and recommend them as a flavorful though crass diversion for a night’s entertainment.

Of course one could actually make real
jalapeño cheese balls if one wanted to
as pictured from this recipe by Kooksfood.

Stars: 2½/4

Spiciness Rating: Hot

Pros:

- Nice extra-large corn-puff balls are thick and crunchy

- Flavorful and spicy

Cons:

- Salty balls are too salty