Monoprix Tortillas Enroulées

          The first chips I bought in France were Tomato-Basil chips, but since then it’s been a long dry haul in the category of Italian-inspired seasoning, until the other day my favorite half-elf snagged a small bag of them for a picnic out on the Buttes de Chaumont.

            Those familiar with my earlier review of the Tortillas Enroulee Fromage should recognize the format; basically a Nacho corn tortilla round wrapped into a cylinder evocative of those cute little cookies you get with your coffee.  (Incidentally, in addition to being known as pirouettes, these cookies are also apparently called ‘cigarettes’, which I guess would sound sweet and delicious only to a Parisian- the air is fresh indoors here, I swear.)  The rolled tortilla chip format might sound gimmicky, but it’s actually crunches very pleasingly in the mouth, and is still usable with thicker dips like guacamole or cheese dip.  They seemed like exactly the sort of thing that would go well with tomato-basil flavoring.

Cigarette smoke from philosophy students
and fashion models makes up 20% of Paris's
atmosphere. Unfortunately, all the coffee
does not also contribute to the odor.

            Unfortunately, I must report with a heavy heart that if this is a tomato flavoring, it is a very sad and watery tomato.  Or maybe canned tomatoes, tasting more of tin and iron than juicy vegetable.  The rods are sweet, kind of like a sun-dried tomato, but it is a sickly half-hearted kind of sweet lacking in panache or self-confidence, and there’s a weird sort of celery-salt like flavor that I imagine is supposed to be like basil, but I assure you, rarely anything good can come of celery salt.  It’s a kind of generic vegetably mashup with a sweet element on top, a sort of feebler V8.

            I wouldn’t say they were inedible, because you still have the basic sweet and salty to carry you through, but the vegetable flavor tastes just a little off, like blood in your mouth (maybe it’s the iron from that canned tomato flavor!).  They certainly don’t taste like tomato, (though to be fair, ‘tomato powder’ is listed on the ingredients list right after sugar and salt), but worse is that it just doesn’t taste good.  Still, the fundamentally satisfying crunchiness of the underlying rolled-up-tortilla chips save these from being a total waste, but anyone looking for a good tomato flavored chip should look elsewhere, and anyone intrigued by tortilla cigarettes/pirouettes/whatevers should probably buy the cheese-flavored variety.

Blood flavored tomato chips?  And I
they don't even need to be stalked and
seduced?

Stars: 1½/4

Spiciness Rating: None

Pros:

- Basic rolled-over corn tortilla round format is fun to crunch in your mouth

- Flavoring at least manages to offer a semi-adequate salty-sweet balance

Cons:

- Flavoring is still awful in most respects, failing to taste like actual tomato-basil, sun dried tomatoes, or good in any respect

Crusti Croc Chips Paprika

There is an old teacher’s meme that “if only your child put half of the effort into his studies that he puts into (throwing stickballs/drawing comic strips/hiding whoopee cushions under the teacher’s desk/involving himself in extra-curricular sex-ed, etc.) than he would do brilliantly in school.”  For me, it was usually between “writing design documents for unfeasibly complicated computer games” or “reconsidering whether Hitler could have captured Moscow in 1941”.  In this spirit, I can tell the people at Crusti-Croc “If you put half the effort into your flavoring that you put into your food coloring, you might have something awesome.

The battle at the gates of Moscow in 1941 is the closest
real life evercame to the ski-level in Modern Warfare 2,
AKA the third dream in the movie Inception.

            Now, to be fair, Crusti Croc is basically the brand name of a German discount-grocery chain called Lidl (sort of in the vein of Aldis), and so you have to understand that we’re intrinsically going to be talking about a quantity-for-quality trade off with their products.  And in terms of quantity, well they do offer pretty good tonnage for your euro, by European standards at least.

            I will even remark in their favor that the chips are fairly large and nicely bubbly in texture for something so cheap, though they are text-book Lay’s style potato chips in so far as they are thin and underwhelming in terms of crunchiness.  They are rather pretty with all of the orange food dye they’ve been bathed in, like young girls discovering their inner Picasso when they play with mom’s make-up kit, and look like they are going to explode in tasty flavorfulness when they reach your mouth.

When you are kid, MOR KOLARZ = BETTARZ!
Also, you talk like an orc and try
to bite lollipops.Clearly this one
is angling to for a role in a
Kid Cudi music video.

            Unfortunately, the beauty here is only skin-deep, because they remarkably fail to have any flavor whatsoever.  No, seriously.  These are supposed to be Paprika chips, which apparently are the style du jour here, but you will not taste any paprika, and there is nothing even remotely resembling spiciness here.  There is a slight excess of saltiness which becomes apparent after having a few in succession- the balance is off and the saline in your mouth will become unpleasant if you don’t space out the chips.

Really, though, the extent to which they have failed to impart any flavor is truly breathtaking.   There is only one good reason to buy these, and that’s if you want a large quantity of regular chips and don’t care about flavor.  They do have the virtue of being large and bubbly for something so cheap, so if you’re drunk out of your mind, you won’t bite your tongue off trying to nibble them.  Still, how they managed to release something on the market without any tastable seasoning truly boggles the mind.

Stars: 1½

Spiciness: None

Pros:

- Chips are nice and bubbly for a product so inexpensive

- They’re pretty to look at like a vapid teen movie star

Cons:

- NO FLAVORING AT ALL IN EVIDENCE
- Crisps are on the side of average-thin

Lorenz Monster Munch Gout Jambon & Fromage, Gout Sel, Gout Barbecue

           So every time I go shopping, I’m confronted by a rack full of Monster Munch bags, which honestly are very unfrightening in their little parade of of smiling ghost faces.  However, they do remind me of Pac-Man, and at a loss for more interesting things to buy at that particular store, I resolved to try them out, having been assured they were everybody’s favorite child hood snack.  Now having done some research, it turns out Monster Munch is a big deal in the UK, where they are available with distinct monster-bodies and flavors like ‘Pickled Onion’ and ‘Roast Beef.’  The French flavors are more pedestrian, and in appearance more unified; it appears that the brand has been licensed by a French company which proceeded to do whatever the hell they wanted to with them, so I am not really passing judgment on the UK Monster Munch, which appears to be a whole different bag of (rather interesting-sounding) chips.

As this food analyst acidly put it,
"they are clearly ghosts", not monsters
as in the UK. Anyone used to exploring
dungeons understands this means they
are more likely to drive you insane or
possess you, but not as talented at the
whole bite-your-face off routine,
lacking, as they do, physical form.

            Now in addition to feeling sheepishly infantile for eating ‘Monster Munch’, I was a little reluctant to try them based on my last experience with a Lorenz product, which proved to be brittle and rough on the outside and empty on the inside.  Well, true to form, these ectoplasmic chip-cracker-things (they are made 24.5% out of sunflower oil, and 22% out of pureed potato powder, so make of that what you will) aren’t so rough on the outside, but they’re still empty on the inside.  In texture they are reminiscent of Asian shrimp chips minus the fish flavor, fortunately for me and my anti-piscine ways.  So all in all, these phantoms are acceptable vehicles for flavor delivery, though I still hold the lack of inner substance against these ethereal marauders.

If only they looked like actual
ethereal marauders, everybody's favorite
transdimensional velociraptor that never,
ever wants to close its mouth.

Ham and Cheese Flavored

So now that we have established, in the model of a proper college science experiment, the commonalities in texture between the three case samples, we are left to identify in turn the variations in flavoring.  First in order of tasting is Ham and Cheese, which go well together in real life, and should do so as well as in the ‘let’s pretend’ world of flavoring.  The melted-gruyer Croque-monsieur (literally translated: ‘man-snack’, rrrow!) is the ur-sandwich of the French lunch table, so the folks at Lorenz clearly know what they’re doing from the culturally specific marketing angle.

There's something almost American about
the French preference for literally soaking
their ham sandwiches in additional cheese
and cream until it is a sopping wet mess of
hot melted cream and meat.  Mmmm,
romantic!  No wonder it's called a man snack.

            Fortunately, for them, it works pretty decently, with intimations of gruyer cheese contrasting tonally with a saltier ‘ham’ like accent.  The flavor emulation is far from evocative of the real thing, but you still have a sort pleasant creamy cheese-and-salt flavor rolling around in your mouth after you mash more than a few- and you will probably be tempted to eat more than a few at a time because of the aforementioned lack of density.  Unfortunately, this also means that they can fill a medium sized bag of these up, charge a ‘regular’ French price for them, and end up receiving only 80 grams of content rather than the more standard 100 or 135 grams.  So all in all, nothing to write home about but nonetheless a passable snack .

Salty Monster Munch

            What do you get when you take the unremarkable crisps of the Ham’n’Cheese munch and subtract the flavoring for some old fashioned saltiness?  Nothing especially good.  I will grant that ‘plain’ Monster Munch is all right for some mindless eating, perhaps while drunk on the side of a canal, but it fails to be very compelling because basic unflavored Monster Munch crisps are just not all that good.

Barbecue Monster Munch

            Like the final action scene in a Vin Diesel movie, the location of my last sampling of the French Monster Munch occurred on the docks of the Ile Saint-Louis in the middle of the Sein, where finally the proverbial Monster united with a proper flavor for maximum appeal (did I mention there were motor boats and Germans present?)  Unlike nearly every other barbecue flavoring I’ve had in France, this one reflects an understanding that barbecue should be sweet as well as salty, a combination which it offers to satisfying effect.  While we aren’t talking about a really sophisticated flavoring made with natural herbs and spices, the sweet-and-salty flavor that’s there is genuinely enjoyable, hitting the right notes and finally giving the inoffensive crisps something to swagger about.



Typical riverine scene from the Ile-
Saint Louis.  Please note that the shark
is mechanical and controlled by Nazis.
Also, a great picnic spot.

            So in summary, these obviously are meant to have a sort of unsophisticated appeal, and at that level they are fairly enjoyable as long as you don’t ponder the metrics behind the price-for-quantity ratio.  If you like to eat your chips seriously, sitting on a leather chair glass of gin in hand, contemplating the deep dark darkness of the human soul, Monster Munch really won’t be deep enough for you.  However, they make fairly compelling eating for those in a sociable (and quite possibly drunk) mood who don’t need to pay close attention to the refinement (or lack thereof) of what they are eating.  These munches look exactly like the ghosts from PacMan after eating one of the Power Pellets (did you know that each ghost has a different name and programmed hunting behavior?) and who hasn’t wanted to experience that vicarious thrill in real life?  (Ok, don’t overwhelm my inbox with responses to that one…)  Monster Munchies: for the kids and the PacMan in all of us.

If you enjoy sitting in your antique leather
armchair, pondering your inevitable descent into
madness and corruption and the crunchiness
of potato chips, too numbed by inner suffering
to pay heed to the fawning attempts of your slave
girls to earn your favor, you may find Monster
Munch too crude for your refined sensibilities.
Then again, you may prefer a diet of
unwilling souls.

Stars: 2 for Ham and Cheese

            1 for Salt

            2½ for Barbecue

Pros:

- Chips for a Ghostbuster!

-Easy and pleasant to eat when you don’t need to pay close attention

- Ham and Cheese: There is a fun salty and creamy vibe with these once you really start crunching them

- Barbecue: pleasantly sweet as well as salty, balancing the flavor well

Cons:

- The crisps are airy and insubstantial in the middle

- Flavoring is more suggestive than evocative

- Salty: Don’t bother with these unless inebriated

Cape Cod Sweet Mesquite Barbeque

           I’ve written about good teases which tantalize with subtle flavors at the tip of the tongue, before finally delivering a glorious flavor load- but sadly, Cape Cod’s Mesquite Barbeque falls in the category of bad teases, which fail to follow up on what seemed to be a promising package.  They also fall in a well-populated genre of high-quality kettle cooked chips which are lacking adequate flavoring.

I must confess to a certain degree of fear in starting out my review relationship with Cape Cod Potato chips on a low note, not only because their mafia extends nation-wide, but because it happens that my significant other is a native of that perfectly charming coastal community.  Given what I know of the salty mooncussers of eastern Massachusetts, I can assure you that were I to offend them, they are not at all likely to curse me out in the wicked colorful local dialect, hoist me up with their massively muscled limbs, and feed me to the fishes.  No, not at all likely.  

Were you to spend a week in the
Chatham Squire, you would probably
have the chance to meet every resident
of Chatham, Cape Cod.

So…I have two theories as to why so many high-quality chips are shipped with weak flavoring: the first is that by using only natural ingredients, they may have limitations to how strong a flavoring they can manufacture compared to mass-market flavorings that are basically alchemical Frankenstein concoctions of great tastiness.  The second reason is that they may be cooked according to an aesthetic emphasizing the taste of the potato over that of the flavoring.  My (highly subjective) feeling on this is that tasting the potato is great, but when I buy barbecue potato chips, I expect them deliver a strong sweet and salty barbecue-taste, not a potato-flavored potato chip with a faint whiff of the grill.

Based on the improbable flavor fusions on mass market
potato chips we can only  presume their flavor R&D
department looks pretty much like this.

            And there is the problem with Cape Cod’s Mesquite barbecue chips- the flavoring is weak and doesn’t build up to a strong statement- like a crappy job, you go to work every day and dig in, only to wish you actually felt rewarded for all the effort.  It’s really too bad, because these are good quality kettle-cooked potato chips, thick and with a nice rough texture, though tending to be on the small side at around 1½ inches in diameter. 

Every wonder why they never show
images of actual mesquite on the bag?
I'll never have it said I don't make
all of your wishes come true...

One unique feature is that there is an authentic smoky tang of burnt mesquite lurking amidst the other flavors, which is awesome, but the fact that it’s not coming together with a worthwhile barbecue flavoring prevents it from fulfilling its potential.   The seasoning, or the little you can taste, is standard stuff- tomato, onion, and garlic, apparently all natural, though insufficiently strong and sweet.

            Purists that prefer a strong earthy potato flavor in their chips with only lightly applied additional flavors may enjoy these chips, especially with their mesquite-smoke tang, but anybody looking for a strong sweet barbecue flavor will do much better looking elsewhere, despite the other qualities of these chips.

Stars:  1½/4

Spiciness Rating: Very Mild

Pros:

- Nice, quality kettle cooked potato crisps

- Pleasing mesquite tang

Cons:

- Flavoring is too weak and ineffectual

- Crisps are fairly small

Pringles Multigrain Cheesy Cheddar

            I have heard it argued that every movie is really the plot of two older movies combined, and if this is so, I think the same might be said of chips.  Someday there will likely be barbecue-Cheetos and Sour-Cream-and-Onion tortilla chips, and on the same premise some bright developer at Pringles must have woken up one day and thought “let's make Sun Chips that are actually Pringles!”  Now I’m fine with this mix-and-match approach which can produce some interesting hybrids, and so it is with an open mind that I tried out the Cheese Cheddar Multigrain Pringles.



Gene Wolfe wrote these books
after inventing the technology
to mass produce Pringles.
Coincidence?  Surely not!



            It must be especially tricky to mix it up with Pringles, because certain elements of the brand demand a product that is consistently of the same shape and texture to fit in the trademark Pringles cylinders.  What mind would invent such baroque chip-making technology in the first place?  Why, only the science fiction author Gene Wolf, the same mind that gave us an apprentice torturer on post-apocalyptic Earth saving the world and running away from his crazy ex-girlfriend.  If you read his account of how they were created, you may notice the same ‘dedicated mind driven over the brink of sanity’ themes that he puts into his writing- now we know what inspired the Citadel of the Autarch!

In any case, what they did with this variety is basically create a ‘Pringles’ chip with the same sort of multigrain cornmeal texture you expect from the generally excellent Sun Chips brand.  However, to make sure they stack neatly together, the chips can’t have an irregular texture, and most importantly, cannot be especially thick.  Within these limitations, multi-grain Pringles do their jobs and deliver a multi-grain corn-meal flavor, but the constraints upon their form are a little too steep for them to achieve their potential.  The crisps are simply too thin and smooth to evoke the best qualities of Sun Chips.  The orange cheese flavoring layered on is decent and adequate in quantity, but unfortunately was applied in random sprays that do not cover the entire crisp, (something which others have noticed as well),  so I found myself having to strategically target which part of the Pringle I lay my tongue upon to make sure I actually tasted the flavoring.  (Yes, I am that ridiculous.)



Those interested in a closer look at
the crisps should check out this
review of them at Gigi's Review's and
it's beautiful chip photography. 
She pretty much disagrees with me on
every point in my review!



            Another much appreciated quality of sun chips that the Pringles version fails to live up to is their fat calories ratio of about 35%.  The Pringles Multigrain crisps clock in around 140 calories, of which 50% are fat, which is significantly fewer calories than most other Pringles chips (tending around 180) but still not in the healthier-than-average ratio of fat calories that Sun Chips can claim.

            While perfectly edible and reasonably tasty, this experiment in hybridization is simply not as good as actual Sun Chips, though I suppose if you are Pringle fanboy and will accept no substitute (or face space restraints that only Pringles canisters can solve), they will at least broaden your horizons a little bit.  Now if only they would broaden the chips themselves, then they would do more to satisfy.

Stars: 1 ½

Spiciness Rating: none

Pros:

- Within the contraints of the Pringle’s form, does a reasonable job of making a multi-grain crisp

- Cheese flavoring is ok

- Less calories than most Pringles

Cons:

- Unfortunately, the constraints of the Pringles form really do prevent them from having the thick and rough texture that we appreciate from multi grain chips

- Cheese flavoring is sprayed on with annoying randomness

- Ratio of fat calories not as good as those of Sun Chips

Benenuts 3-D Bugles Gout Bacon

For some reason, Bugle-type snacks seem to have carved out a substantial foot hold in the French savory-snack industry, such that I even have childhood memories from the 90s of snacking on them when making trans-national roadtrips to visit one group of relatives and family friends after another.  Bugles seem a lot less popular in the US, though I have seen them on occasion- and if you ask me, they look rather more like cornucopias than bugles, but I guess they didn’t want to connote the whole overflowing-with-fruits-and-vegetables side of things.

            I actually think bugles are a pretty decent concept as snack food, (I just love all the surface area), and I also happen to rather like bacon, so naturally the idea of pig-flavored cornucopias was going to appeal to me.  However, like my earlier review for ham-flavored chips, these Bacon Bugles suffered from playing up too much on the similarities in flavor between the basic salty snack and the salty meat they were emulating (ham, bacon, etc.) while failing to add in enough of the unique elements of each.  Where are the sweet elements or the buttery fat?  Just about all that’s added into the mix is a sort of smoky essence, but sorry, that will not do sir.

I guess maple or honey glazed bacon
simply doesn't lie in the cultural
context here. :(

            So here we have bugles that are meant to taste like salty smoky bacon, but mostly just taste like salty smoky bugle.  Bugles don’t have an awful flavor by any means, but this is another product that fails to deliver what it promises.  To add insult to injury, looking at the ingredient list I found an amazing assortment of chemicals (can you say 5’ ribonucleotoide disodique five times fast- because that’s what you’re eating.  And seriously, why 5’?  Is that ribonucleotoide really 5 feet long?), no mention of actual bacon anything, but a note that says “aromas- (contains fish.)” 

Closer to the actual 3D
Bacon Bugle experience.

Yes, that is bacon flavored fish.  Those who know me personally and have spent years ragging on my dietary deficiencies, knows that this is quite a low blow for me, as I cannot stand the taste of seafood.  (Yes, yes, I know it is only integral to the best cooking on the planet, makes you smarter, and is healthier than everything else- go feel good about yourself on the smart fish-eating bus, while I grow nauseous and dumb trying to choke down some shrimp.)

            That said, I solemnly swear that I had already come to my conclusions for the bugles before discovering the piscine nature of the contents.  Furthermore, I did in fact finish the bag after said discovery, because although it contains fish, it doesn’t actually taste like fish, just like salty bugles that don’t really taste like bacon.  Not the worst thing in the world, but still, sadly disappointing.

Stars:  1½

Spiciness Rating: none

Pros:

-          Basic Bugles flavor and crunch is there and quite adequate.  The salty flavoring isn’t actually offensive.

Cons:

-          Doesn’t taste like bacon.  Lacks the flavorings necessary to make it interesting or distinctly bacon-like.

-          FISH IN YOUR CHIPS!

Monoprix Saveur Vinaigre Balsamique

Chips, too, have the right to be refined

Casting an eye about for another uniquely European delicacy, I dredged up another unlikely candidate from the store shelves, thereby prolonging the terrible war for our loyalties between Franprix (the one that sells ‘LeaderPrice’ goods) and Monoprix (the pricier French version of Walmart.)  Monoprix’s ‘Balsamic Vinaiger Flavor’ provided just the hook- who else’s vinegar chips are made with the veritable Balsamic!

Now, you must understand that in my Franco-Italian family upbringing, thick burgundy brown balsamic vinegar has pretty much subsumed the ordinary red wine vinegar that is the standard in American daily life.  Everything comes out denser, more flavorful, more lusty in balsamic- just try it out in a tomato and mozzarella salad, or mix it in a vinaigrette with Dijon mustard, oil, and salt.  It is certifiably superior to the thin red or white stuff you usually bathe your vegetables in to make them less healthy.  Instead of being made from wine, balsamic vinegar is formed from fresh trebbiano grapes that are boiled down to 30% of their original volume, then stored in a succession of wooden casks for 12 full years, each cask made out of a different type of wood to impart a different flavor.  That's right, this vinegar is so elite it's got more pedigree than your average dog.  (Okay, to be honest, the sort of balsamic vinegar we actually buy in the grocery store hasn't been subjected to the full 12 years.)

People in the middle ages used to
believe that balsamic vinegar had
magical powers-and apparently they
were right.  Granting long life,
unbreakable bones, fast metabolism,
numbing pain, fortifying against
disease, thereby transforming
you into the goddamned Batman.

So, I was hoping for wonderful things as promised by the suggestively dark-brown bag, and its delightfully impertinent sub-title: chips, too, have the right to be refined!  (This is not my prose run a wild, you can read them for your self!)  Came the night at the end of a stressful day where our evening plans had fallen in flames and we were left to discuss religion, sex, and politics with our flat mates and I produced my piece de resistance for a trial by fire.

Unfortunately, if you’re asking yourself, how will balsamic vinegar chips taste different from the regular sort?, I still can’t help you because sadly I could not divine any distinction.  I think it didn’t help that the chips were the standard bright-light-yellow color of vinegar chips in the states (the flavoring powder indistinguishable in color)- I honestly believe that if they had used a burgundy brown coloration- like that of actual balsamic vinegar- I would have reacted very differently to them.  Come on, I’m practically giving free tips away on how to psychologically manipulate me, I hope somebody is listening!  But as they were, they looked and tasted like standard vinegar-flavored chips.

Let's be honest, some chips do have
a somewhat 'recombined' texture to
them.

That’s not a bad thing- sometimes they delivered quite a nice acidic surge, perhaps even suggestive of the fuller-bodied flavor of Balsamic vinegar compared to the watery-thin texture of regular vinegar (no, nobody is paying me for the smack talk.)  In fact, the bag assures us that the chips were flavored with real balsamic vinaigrette, so that is awesome.  However, like too many other chips, the crisps suffered from highly inconsistent distribution of the flavoring; about a third of the chips had a generous powerful kick of vinegar flavoring, and the rest frustrated me with the intimation of an aroma that they could not, ultimately deliver.  To top it off, the crisps themselves were on the low end of average, which is to say basically serviceable, but damp enough with oil and hampered by a particle-board like texture that failed to exhibit much thickness or crunch when eaten.



Every time these conversation happen,
another Star Fleet vessel is sucked
into an improbable wormhole, forcing
it's crew to face their inner demons
and wear unlikely but sexy costumes.

I still feel a little bad knocking these in the review, because they at times delivered an excellent vinegar flavor, they were made with actual Balsamic vinegar, and the contents of the bag lasted about 15 minutes before being devoured (but maybe that’s more of a comment of the French penchant for small quantities).  But in the end, they failed to consistently deliver enough flavor or to taste significantly different from other vinegar flavored chips.  Also, the rate at which they were eaten may reflect that my wife chose that evening to discuss the finer points of Catholicism, Judaism, and Hitler with our two German roommates, prompting us all to consume heedlessly in an attempt to suborn the pain of a conversation that rearticulated Godwin’s law so thoroughly a rift in space and time was opened.

Stars: 1½/4

Spiciness: none

Pros:

-Made with authentic balsamic vinegar

-Sometimes deliver strong vinegar flavor

Cons:

-More often, fails to deliver enough flavoring

-Crisps are of less than impressive quality

-Flavor was not really distinct from regular vinegar flavoring

Lays Chips a L’Ancienne Saveur Jambon Fume

(Old-Fashioned Smoked-Ham Flavor)

Have you ever finished watching a movie and thought to yourself- “Wow, what an amazing twist in the plot.  Too bad the characters, setting, cinematography, and dialogue ranged from direly boring to utterly crappy.”  It’s those kinds of films that get one thing right, do it so very well, but are full of tragic fail by being deficient in every other regard.

I’m perhaps over playing the link here with the ‘Smoked Ham’ flavored chips from Lays I recently tried out, but basically my complaint is that it pulls off a pretty clever trick with the flavor, but fails to follow up anything particularly interesting thereafter.  It’s like a student that show up to class with a snazzy intro for their Power Point presentation, hoping to get away with having done almost no research outside of Wikipedia.  (We’ve probably all been that person at least once in our lives…)  



That aisle on the left is all ham.
Seriously.



This is yet another flavor I found in Europe which I have yet to see in the US- ‘smoked ham’- and so I was pretty intrigued from the get go.  Ham is THE lunch meat in France- go to the grocery store or deli.  No roast beef in sight.  Bologna need not apply- save for the occassional package of mortadella.  But aside from some sliced chick or turkey, there are at least two dozens varieties of ham on sale at the super market. What, don't you want some pate or sliced table sausage with your bread?  Perhaps you should buy a tasty ham sandwich with butter and mustard from the boulangerie?  So in a sense, ham chips are obvious here. 

The chips inside are slightly above average quality salty potato crisps, and when you first bite into them you immediately are hit by an evocative buttery-ham flavor.  However, while the flavor is very cleverly done, the problem with a very salty ham flavor is that after a bite or two, it tastes nearly identical to salty potato chip flavor.  So about three mouthfuls in, you will easily forget that you are eating ‘ham-flavored’ chips and just process them as being the regular sort.

Sometimes a lack of subtly is a virtue.
More ham, not less!

Now as regular potato chips, they are unexceptional though in no way 'bad', but I can’t help but feel that they miss the mark.  I want my ham flavored potato chips to be more hammy, a la William Shatner, something complex enough to continue stimulating the tongue, not a brief sort of amuse-guelle that is quickly washed away in a wave of generic saltiness.  So while there are no major faults with these chips, I cannot help but rate them critically for their lack of panache.  The initial flavor as it hits the tongue is intriguing, but no further delights follow it as you probe too deeply.  Like too many movies today, these chips offer a shallow experience with only a brief flash of innovation, no matter how cunning.

Stars: 1 ½

Spiciness Rating: none

Pros:

- Buttery ham flavor is at first uncanny and amusing.

- Decent texture

Cons:

- After the initial few bites, they begin to taste exactly like regular potato chips.

- Relies to heavily on saltiness rather than additional flavoring to evoke ham

Lorenz Curly Cacahuete (Peanut)

Somewhere in my youth it was impressed upon me that the French don’t do peanut butter.  I don’t think they even necessarily hate it, it is just not part of their cultural repertoire, the way making beans on toast would never occur to the American mind.  Yes, you can find peanut butter in some of the better stocked super markets, but it is definitely an exotic product in these parts.  (Curiously enough, I am told peanut butter is more commonly appreciated in Germany, though not apparently, peanut butter sandwiches.)

Peant butter is a state of mind that
is unknown in the land of the hexagon.

But while the French may not have peanut-butter flavored anything, peanut flavored chips are in abundant supply. Peanut-flavored bugles and peanut-flavored corn puffs are prominently on display in super markets, and being a cheapskate I picked up the least expensive I could find and have been rewarded with a product of corresponding quality.

Lorenz Curly Cacahuete (Peanut) are shaped roughly like Cheetos corn puffs, but the texture is by far inferior.  Both rougher on the tongue and less dense, these corn-puff curls are lacking the oily texture and the chewy soft interiors that make Cheetos awesome.  In other words, while they do not completely botch the format, they earn a D for having an unfavorable ratio of air-to-tasty-goodness.

Ever though to yourself "Mmmm, I
love the flavor of salty, unsweetened
peanuts so much, if only I could taste
them on puffed corn?"  If so, stop
having these thoughts.

            I must honestly report that the actual flavoring of the chips is square on the mark, and after gobbling down a fair number (and you will tend to gobble down a fair number at once because of the aforementioned lack of substance), your mouth will be convinced you are gobbling a handful of peanuts.  However, you will ask yourself, “why not just eat a handful of peanuts?”  Because the chips are not at all sweet, and frankly I found myself wanting something that tasted more like peanut butter than peanuts, or at least honey-roasted peanuts or some such.  If you like the idea of having chips that tasted like salty unsweetened peanuts, you could probably forgive the failings of texture and appreciate what the mixers at Lorenz have crafted.  Myself, while I found they made a passable snack, they mostly left me wanting something better, or at least, sweeter.

Stars: 1 ½

Spiciness Rating: none

Pros:

-Very effectively emulates the flavor of unsweetened peanuts

Cons:

-Corn puffs are very poor and insubstantial in texture

-The flavoring may leave you wishing for something sweeter