He’s Back and He’s Bad (from Hungary)

Erin posted many beautiful pictures of our Budapest
trip on American Barbaric- about 1/3 architecture,
1/6 food, and 1/2 miscellaneous craziness.

Well, I promised a flurry of chip reviews when I returned from my vacation in Hungary, but instead I was overtaken with a fit of laziness and sucked into another major project, developing and releasing a tabletop fantasy wargame tentatively titled ‘Tide of Battle’ (I'll put a link up once I have a site ready).

Lajos Kossuth was the internationally renowned dissident
journalist and president of a doomed Hungarian revolutionary
republic.  Kossuth is also the powerful Fire God of the
Forgotten Realms.  Coincidence? I think not.  

This has resulted in a massive disserve to all you chip-voyeurs, but I actually have also been busy writing up reviews for later release, just not posting them (finding the pictures and adding the funnies takes more time!)  Let us just say that the trip to Magyar Kingdom revealed a highly developed chip-eating culture.  In fact, as I will soon detail, the Hungarian fondness for deliciously caloric foods has resulted in their passinga tax on chips just last week! The goals is to encourage consumers to buy less junk food (it applies to soda and other snacks), chip manufacturors to make them healthier (thereby paying lower tax), and for the currently cash-starved government to rake in an additional $100 million euros to be spent on health care (which I must admit, is peanuts by American standards.)  Well I clearly should be outraged that my favorite food is being surcharged, but I actually am a great believer in ‘incentives-based’ policies.  However, given that traditional Hungarian foods will not be subject to the tax, there is good reason to suspect that there will be rather minimal effects on reducing obesity, as shall soon become apparent.

Hungary is where Rohan learned to charge
down the castle ramparts sweeping their foes
before them (see 1:58).  The glow on the
painting is not an illicit camera flash, but
Gandalf arriving in the distance.

Fortunately for me, I arrived before the tax was in place, and I also got to revel in Hungary’s wonderful history of doomed badassery.  Kind of like Poland,  the Magyar people of Hungary spent the first half of the last millennium taking names, and the second half rebelling against foreign occupiers (Ottomon Turks, Austrians, Russians), while hybridizing their background as wild horse archers from the steppes with a reputation for romantic intellectualism, courtesy of their Austrian occupiers-cum-reluctant-partners-in-empire.

We didn't try jumping off the
balcony but the idea definitely
occurred to us.

So besides the Hungarian reputation for doomed-bad-assery, Budapest is a beautiful city with so many gorgeous buildings and monuments you’ll want to shake a stick at it, without being half as crowded or polluted as Paris.  Furthermore, they have two excellent things going for them: delicious cooking at utterly affordable prices, and hot-spring baths.

Asparagus, wrapped in ham,
wrapped in fried chicken breast,
in crispy fried gnocchi cooked
in a gorgonzola cream suace,
with a sweet balsamic sauce
on the side. For 6 Euros.
Thanks, Ruben!

I leave it at that for the baths, but the cooking is a little more topical.  Besides the stereotypical Gulash soup, Hungarians basically love finding new ways to combine meat with cream and then more meat.  Also, vegetables with cream and meat.  Howabout soft palacinka pancakes filled with cream, and meat if you want it?  Perhaps a helping of heavy pasta with cream and meat as well?  Don’t forget a creamy poppy seed makos desert- no meat though.  And besides the utterly obvious reasons that this so great (not for you health, obviously) is that while you might pay $20-30 for comparable entrees at an ‘average’ French restaurant in either France or the United States, in Hungary you pay 8-20 per person for the whole meal if you know where to go.

Navajo fry bread was a concept so brilliant
it was also spontaneously created in Hungary
as is known as Langos.  We did not take
advantage of the version covered in meet
cheese and cream.  Not kidding.

So let’s just say Hungary was culinary happy times for me, and I recommend it on that basis alone, but the Hungarians stores were also diversely stocked compared to those in Paris.  Now these chips tended to come from two sources: domestically produced by the Chios chips company (which has a very wide range of offerings), or as one would expect, various offerings from Lay’s tailored for the Central European market.  (As Hungary is too small at 10 million people to have an entire market segment, they are instead marketed to a common region that includes the Baltic states, the Czech and Slovak Republics, and Poland.) 

Courtesy of the National Musuem,
we can see the dreaded Hungarian
'bending-holy-laser-beam' effect.

Chio’s offerings proved to be extensive and varied, but surprisingly, Lay’s Central European products also sported a number of brilliantly tasty and well-conceived items that I have yet to see in France or America.  (Perhaps some are derived from American releases that I have not yet been exposed to.)  So read on for the first of my Hungarian chip reviews, and hear the tale of my fried-potato slice discoveries in the Kingdom of the Magyars…

Tunisian Chip Extravaganza

About a month ago a certain post-modern Mexicanfood enthusiast that I happen to be intimately acquainted with embarked upon an expedition to Tunisia on a mission to witness a local marriage and also eat as much tasty food as possible (the second goal being a necessary outcome of succeeding at the first.)  She returned with a deep sun tan, a million beautiful pictures, and a quartet of Tunisian domestically produced chips!

Now in case you are not familiar with Tunisia, you may recall a certain science-fiction epic with shiny robots, little hooded men with glowing eyes, and endless walks in an arid desert on a planet farthest from the bright center of the universe called Tatooine.  Which was rather unimaginative, as Tataouine is the name of the desert governate in Tunisia where those scenes (at least in the first movie) were filmed.

Now, those of you paying attention to the recent wave of revolutions in Arab countries may recall that Tunisia was in fact the site of the first revolution in the Arab Spring when the arrest of an unregistered fruit seller led, over the course of month, to the overthrow of the government.  The ripples of change in Tunisia swamped over into Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen and beyond, causing mass popular protests and the overthrow of dictatorships that had lasted for decades.  So the lesson is, don’t underestimate the Tunisian people, and don’t keep them from selling their food.

In that spirit, we’ll dive into the intricacies of uniquely Tunisian chip cuisine from the local producers Cerealis and Golden Krispy (sounds like donuts!) over a series of 4 reviews in the following month.  And do feel free to check out Erin’s beautiful photos of Tunisia, its people (especially the spicy sweethearts at the wedding, all inked up) and their food, not to mention her written observations of the visit and the three day wedding ceremony (they have a wedding party each night.)
And, the bride and groom dance over a fish. Seriously.

To kick us off, read below for the first reviews of the familiar sounding Sun Chips Paprika, which you will learn, are not at all what they seem to be.

A Gift from our Horned Friends: Goat Cheese Meatballs in a Badass Recipe Box

Today on a completely-not-related-to-chips post, I will expand on the recent Goat theme of this blog with a post discussing a delightful new experiment in pairing the goat with the cow. That is to say, in cheese balls, or more precisely balls of meat with cheese in them, and while certainly the traditional version involving italian cheeses such as parmesan and romano has much to recommend for it, why not turn it up to 11 and use goat cheese? Surely Bacchus would ardently approve, before sauntering off in a drunken stupor with a maenad under one arm and a jug of wine under the other.

Hot part-goat sex fiend servants of the god of
drunkness and debauchery (and only the
Greeks could make this stuff up), the maenads'
proclivities for hot sex and flowing liquer were
only matched by their love of tearing men up
into bloody chunks in orgiastic rites,
faithfully reenacted in True Blood Season 2.

Now this invention is in no way my own, but entirely the fault of Jeramy Pappas from Fucking Badass Recipe Box whose post on goat cheese meatballs proved irresistably interesting, funny, and well illustrated, as are his many other posts discussing the nuances distnguishing Armagnac from Cognac, the basics on Vietnamese cuisine, and the ultimate guide to whether you should order your steak rare or not (quick answer: rare steak is just as safe as cooked steak! Don't believe me, check out the post!)  Also featured: strippers, white trash cuisine, colorful profanity, and  excessive manliness.  Like, totally the best of both worlds!

Truth be told, a goat cheese meatball looks amazingly similar to the regular kind,
especially after being submerged in enough tomato sauce to hide a submarine.

So to prove that this is no case of corrupt back scratching cronyism from the fat cat blogging-and-eating complex, kindly bear witness above the proof of the finished recipe (which I will confess was about 2/3 executed by my favorite fiery fiendstress), and allow me to assure you it was characterful and tasty and lasted for about 10 minutes before being utterly devoured in a horrific feeding frenzy.  As Pappas advertised, the goat cheese does indeed remain in coherent chunks instead of melting throughout the meatballs as is usually the case, and the meatballs themselves were delightfully simple to prepare.I would love to share some with you, but I'm afraid there are about as many meatballs left as there were survivors of the Death Star's state visit to Alderan.

Official Report of the Imperial Human Rights Comissions:
"We are confident that every effort was made to evacuate non-combatants from the
free-fire zone, and can say with certainty that no unnecessary loss of human life
occurred given the military situation at the time."

Otherwise, you'll simply have to try the recipe for yourself here. So do yourself a favor, and either A) actually try cooking something instead of eating chips on the couch or B) at least enjoy reading about coconut liquer, anti-colonial propaganda, naan bread, and Sunny Leone's unique contributions to america's west coast film industry.

News Flash: American reinforcements land in France in June- history repeats itself!

When my mom asked me what American products she could pack for me for when she visited us in France, aside from my laundry list of geekiness, she suggested chips.  “But what kind?” she asked.  “Anything exotic looking…” I requested breezily.

Well, mothers do not fail, and when I next saw her in her hotel in the 7em Arrondisement, she had one tube of Ragin’ Cajun Xtreme Pringles (making it the second product I will have reviewed making references to the temper of our Louisianan swamp-folk) and a host of exotic Wai Lana South-Asian themed corn-tapioca-chip things.  Motherly Mission Acomplished!

Now, Wai Lana apparently makes a business out of selling bamboo mats and making yoga instruction videos, which is more my parent’s cup of tea, but apparently healthy gluten-free organic chips are a part of the enlightened meditative life style.  Rather than the kindly face of a sage Indian Yogi, the packages all display an alluring south-east Asian island girl apparently inviting you to a day on the beach with cocktails.  Score one for the marketing department!

Now, I figured these chips might not seem as attainable as other products here, but their website ()lists distributors in Australia, Canada, Hungary, Korea, Mexico, Slovenia, and the UK, as well as the rest of Europe through HMV and Virgin.  Sadly, the website doesn’t enumerate the American distributors, but the ones my mom found was in the little exotic snack section of a Marshall's, and presumably there are plenty more places that have them as well.

In general, these crisps have a running rice-and-tapioca texture which is kind of unique, but the shape, hardness, and, of course, flavoring of the crisps has varied substantially between the two I’ve tried so far.  Below, you can see my first review of the Whole Grain Sweet Chili & Lime flavor, soon to be followed by a review of the Sweet and Sour variety.

Reviews by Flavor and tracking Gluten Free and MSG Free Chips

Hello folks!  Well, I promised three months ago that I would begin implementing the chips according flavor, type, and brand, and I've finally put up a tag indexing everything according to flavor now on the menu bar!  It turned out to be a lot of work, but it should be faster now to implement the rest: next up I shall have indexing by type of chip (potato, corn, nacho, etc.), and eventually by brand and some other categories.

Also, I have begun tracking products as to whether they are gluten and/or MSG free, using the 'Gluten Free' and 'MSG Free' tag.  While neither ingredient poses a problem for me personally, I've talked with a number of people that expressed concern over the MSG content of chips, or said they couldn't eat them because they had a severe gluten allergy.  Well, while a lot of chips still use MSG it turns out, a fairly large amount of them don't.  Similarly, a surprising number of chips are also gluten free.  (This has been pretty hard to impossible to track with the French chips, that mostly don't bother to inform you whether they are, so assume I they aren't unless I see evidence otherwise.) 

So for now, you can look at a list of the products I've reviewed which are gluten or MSG free by clicking on their respective tags (at the bottom of this very post!), and I should soon have an Index page of those products up on the pages menu bar for your convenience.  Alternately, you can check out Frito-Lay's website which lists gluten-free and MSG free products (in America only, unfortunately), or Utz's guide to the same.  And, you should be happy to learn that ALL Kettle Brand products are both gluten free and MSG free.

One important caveat to the gluten-free list: it tracks only products that don't have gluten ingredients, but the Frito-Lay site notes that some gluten-free products may possibly have been processed by machinery that previously was in contact with gluten-containing products, so keep that in mind depending on your degree of sensitivity and check out their website for the additional details.

A Package in the Mail

I was heading out to do some grocery shopping late one afternoon last week when our concierge pounced on me, haranguing me at length for having not picked up the mail in the last two days.  Have you not seen all the letters piling up?  It’s starting to be stressful. 

Well, we shared the apartment with enough other people that I kind of started assuming that one of them was getting around to it before I was, but as it turns out,, a hefty pile had accumulated, including one big cardboard box from across the Atlantic with my name on it.

Well, I already had an inkling that my friend Joe K (yes, that K as in KOOL!), our average-every-day-Joe expert on the Somali language, space fleet tactics, hip-practical-and-outrageously-expensive hiking gear, piracy, Asian cinema, and Mac fanboyism (I’m definitely missing a few more here) felt that I was perhaps being deprived of some of the finer things of American chippery.  And, for all my see-the-bright-side attitude about the state of salty-snack foods in France, there really are truly a lot of finer things I am missing here.  Just imagine how the French feel when they come to our typical grocery stores and see what the selection of cheese and dry sausage is like!  (I don’t have to imagine, because I’ve been told on more than one occasion; I’m nearly over the sobbing by now…)

Well, Joe isn’t the kind of guy who would let a little obstacle like the Atlantic ocean stop him¸ (it’s the sort of geographic inconvenience he’s used to eliding on a regular basis.)  Let me tell you, the last time I got him stuck in the bathroom of a night club with a room full of orcs in leather trenchcoats, it was the orcs that were left crying in pain on the floor.

So I mistakenly assumed these were chips from Joe’s place in North Carolina, but silly me, they come from the region of his ancestral holding, the West coast.  All three bags are varieties of Tim’s Cascade Style Potato Chips, which according to the website, distributes to the following states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wyoming.  Apparently, they are also sold in Canada, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan.  So my Asian and Canadian readers should be able to get a hold of these, (yes I know you’re out there!), but sadly were I to return to my secret lair on the East Coast I will remain forever after deprived.

The questions poses itself: can I possibly review these chips without being biased, or at least tempted to please my benefactor?  Well, probably not.

But I will try really, really hard to be objective anyway- with luck, I can live up to the standards proudly set by Fox News.  Fair and balanced for the win!

(You can judge my impartiality by my first review of the Hawaiian Barbecue chips posted below!)

Something to Amuse Yogurt Lovers...

If you will permit my brief derilection from sacred duty, I thought I would refer you over to a new blog started by my friend Clemente, who is reviewing yougrts at http://yogheartlove.blogspot.com/

Now, I eat even more yogurt than I do chips, and so the idea to write about them had crossed my mind even before I moved to France, the mother country of all yogurt lovers.  (And strangely enough, even though the French Dannon and Yoplait companies produce the vast majority of yogurt sold in US stores, they still sell entirely different products in France!)

On the negative aspects of the yogurt's packaging:
The cream-maker on the lid reflects a too negative
image of labor and production.  A cheekier, more
charming woman,  such as Brigitte Bardot, licking a
drop of fresh milk  would have been more beneficial
to the statistics on impulse buys related directly to
 the external aesthetics of the yogurt.

However, Clemente's writing style is even more baroque, even more grandiose, even more wind-blown than my ravening reviews, and though they are written in French, it might be worth finding a web-translator because his commentary is hilarious.  In his first review he spends five paragraphs reviewing the aesthetics of the packaging alone.

Once he gets around to commenting on the actual contents, he offers such insightful commentary as follows:

Now immerse your spoon in this ocean of happiness, this creamy cascade of softness, this noble mousse tickling the palaces of the gods of the sky and milk.  Ninkasi better watch out, the raisins born on the vine will be dethroned by bovine milk.

Almost impalpable, incommensurable, the mousse bubble that we have pried from its nest remains a mystery, and only its absorption will unveil the magical taste of its poison.  As, more strongly than any drug, it alienates us from eternity.  Before smelling the odor of my death, Saint Paul will smell chestnuts.

Imagine what his reviews will be like for yogurts he doesn't like.

Welcome to the Chipster Diaries!

And so it begins!  Your are looking at the product of an uncomfortable number of wasted hours contemplating the gastronomic delights of the humble and much derided chip, here defined as any variety of  crispy snacks including the classic potato chip, puffed corn chips a-la-Cheetos, nacho chips, and any other wierd fried or baked things I can justify without sound basis.

Why am I wasting my time and health writing about potato chips?  Did my parents feed me nothing but junk food in my youth to save money?  Sad as I am to dispel this Dickensian tale of nutritional depravity, I was in fact raised in a family where every night I was treated to French and Mediterranean cooking, and where chips were strictly interdicted, rare artifacts that I might perchance occasionally snatch at a barbecue at somebody elses house.  (Later on tortilla chips were deemed acceptable, as they could be eaten in tandem with organic salsa.)   And yet, despite my parents doing the right thing and making every effort to make me a man of refined pallet and cultured taste, like all those girls from the strict Christian families that go on to become adult film stars, as an adult I swiftly indulged my most forbidden cravings, always searching for something more interesting than the run of the mill Doritos and salty Lay's chips.

You can pretty much assume this
aisle stretches out into infinity

But why waste your time reading about them?  Well, if you have any fancy for chips yourself, you doubtlessly have felt the terrible angst of being confronted with an abundant grocery story aisle overflowing with choices, all of them promising delicious bounties- but knoqinf rhR amongst the multitudes, some are only acceptably average, some truly delicious and original, and a terrifying few are offensively repugnant.  One can never know the truth behind the shiny, smiling facades of the bags that whisper such sweet promises on the labels, without diving inside (and necessarily, paying for them.)  And though the process of exploration, the risk-versus-rewards of trying new things, is rewarding in and of itself, I still wouldn't mind getting the occasional pointer on which products truly are exceptional and which are strictly to be avoided.  It is there that this humble blog may come to your assistance.


Do you think he worried about the Lay workers
being alienated from the means of production?



Furthermore, you should read it to be entertained, because it can be funny watching supposed adults rant at length over the flaws of junk food.  Rest assured, if I can find a way to make my assessments unnecessarily long for the sake of your amusement, I will.  As a fallen culinary aristocrat and self-proclaimed chipster, I will of course attempt to maintain appropriate levels of self-aware irony, pedantic over-elocution, and verbose grandiosity.  (However, unlike a proper hipster, I harbor no disdain for mass-market products.  My philosophy is thoroughly Marxist-Leninst where chips are concerned: the consumption of the proletariat is worthy of critical examination!)



Finally, you may find this blog of interest because I happen to have begun residing in France since the beginning of January 2010, and have since been exploring the peculiar varietes of salty snacks found on the other side of the Atlantic.  Yes, that greatest of food cultures, the inventors of high cuisine, are indeed stooping down to our level and formulating savory delights suited for their unimaginably sophisticated palettes.  So while I am here, you can expect to see forthcoming (and by forthcoming, I mean already written and in the pipelines to be posted) reviews for goat cheese flavored cheetos, ham flavored potato chips, cumin-slathered nachos, and peanut-flavored corn crisps, to name a few.

Yes, there is a braised
chicken on that bag.

Weep not any tears, my fellow Americans, if you are fearful that I am abandoning any relevance to your local grocery store aisles, for I have a very substantial body of reviews written starting since the Spring of 2010 of 100% American chips of all varieties, just waiting to be posted in their web-enhanced glory.  I will be churning out around 2 new reviews a week for the next several months, so expect plenty more of interest down the line, complete with unnecessary historical details and gratuitous verbiage.

To start you off is a batch of four reviews below, ranging from the awesome wierdness of Late Night Cheeseburger Nachos to the mendacious awfulness of Burger Kings Cheesy Fries, the base nostalgia and cereal eating woes of Cheeto's Cheddar and Salsa Zingers to the peculiar naming conventions of Lay's French Bologna flavor.  Each review concludes with a rating out of 4 stars, a list of pros and cons for the more discerning reader, and a Spiciness rating.  You may also wish to take a look at the Scoring Guide tab above for an explanation of how I reach my ratings and a safety warning on spiciness levels.  You can expect me to write up plenty more reviews in the near future, and eventually institute some tabs to sort the reviews by flavor and brand (once there are enough reviews to make it worth while.)  And by all means, feel free to contribute your own insights or criticisms on the comments thread- as they say, I would happily have a dialogue over a monologue any day.  I'll leave you to enjoy what dubious pleasures you can scavenge and hopefully inspire your secret salty-sweet cravings.