CrustiCroc Soufflee Gout Bacon (Baconsmaak)

Today we’re back to our favorite (as in only) local German discount food chain, Lidl, and their own take on puffed wheat with bacon.  Crusti Croc’s approach can be described as ribbed, not for your pleasure, but in an endearing yet creepy attempt to make the crunchy wheat-puffs display the red and white stripes of a strip of bacon.  The effect isn’t entirely visually displeasing, leaving you to imagine a dried out bit of bacon cooked in fat and puffed up like a balloon, but it’s still a little strange eating pieces of wheat that have been dressed up as meat a la Lady Gaga. 

Self-objectification raised to a juicy new
height: triump or tragedy? Just don't
ask Carol Adams...

Yes, you heard that correctly, they are made up of 74% wheat, which officially makes them closer to cake batter and breakfast cereal than most other chips out there.  Healthwise, they are a little healthier than your average chip, and they do crunch satisfyingly in the mouth and have sufficient density to satisfy, unlike some notably airier and brittle snacks I have had in the past.

In my youth, I was very meticulous about keeping the
syrup strictly on the pancakes.  Now, though, I am all
in favor of the syrup tsunami.

What of the flavor?  I would say they got the basic salty bacon flavor down right, while including just enough sweetness not to fall into the trap that ensared Bacon flavored Bugles as thoroughly as a hungry Chewbacca in an Ewok trap.  It’s still a little salty, and with prolonged eating they might start to taste like generic corn puffs endowed with saline, but with a little smokiness and some sugar, this bacon is closer to that sweet breakfast experience than other flavors out there.  In fact the crisps smell very pleasantly sweet and smokey, like a hot fried American breakfast doused in maple syrup just waiting you in the pan.

You had to add all that salt, and
just look at the result...

So though I was very dubious about these bacon-cross-dressing puffs from across the eastern border, I found them entirely pleasing as a light snack, even if they aren’t remarkably sophisticated, and the disturbing meat-stripes may grown on you over time.

Stars: 2 ½

Spiciness Rating: None

Pros:

- Reasonably charming smoky bacon flavor

-Adequate density for a puffed wheat snack

Cons:

- Flavoring is not too complex and may bug the salt averse

Chio Chips Bacon szalonna izesitesu

If one European country comes close to matching the American fondness for wrapping everything in bacon, it must be Hungary, and there’s an interesting explanation rooted in ethno-zoology.  Mangalica is a species of hairy hog raised almost exclusively in Hungary and the Balkan that’s quite in fashion with the chefs in Budapest.  When I heard they were ‘hairy hogs’ I imagined something like an extra-whispy wild boar, like the Thundertusk boar in the Monster Manual, but actually they look instead rather like sheep.  In pig form. 

Woolly enough to make knit sweater out of. 

Apparently, mangalica are declining in popularity outside of the haute-cuisine scene because they mostly produce lard, which isn’t a winner in these health-conscious times, but lardy pork nevertheless has uses in a number of remarkably tasty things such as sausage and bacon.  While I can’t say I pulled any hairs from my pork, I certainly came to appreciate the local fondness for bacon.  My best meal in Hungary: chicken stuffed with bacon, stuffed with asparagus with gorgonzola polenta.  Hungarian menus evince the indisputable reality that there are few dishes that can’t be improved by a judicious application of salty-sweet pork- and/or cream sauce.

Yes, that's aspargus in bacon
in fried chicken in balsamic
sauce.

Chio’s Bacon chips promised a lot along these lines, with a beautiful image of a slab of dark bacon displayed gratuitously on the cover of the bag, and it was hard not to respond to its whispered promises.  A quick trip back to the guesthouse we were lodged in at Blaha Lujza revealed, however, that these were fairly ordinary salty barbecue flavored chips.

Now, unlike in France, we did not see ‘Barbecue’ products on the store shelves, so it seems that this tried and true vein of tasty seasoning was simply being labeled in a fashion more appropriate to local tastes.  These chips did a reasonable job of conveying a salty-smoky aroma, only using natural flavoring and coloration if the blurb on the package is to be believed.  They did more to evoke barbecue than bacon, but towards the end of the package, I could kind of imagine I was tasting the extra salty and crunchy bacon that’s been very thoroughly fried on the grill till it’s brittle and crispy.

I kind of imagined a 'hairy pig'
would look like this, but the reality is
less stabby.

The crisps themselves were reasonably pretty and authentic looking but not particularly crunchy- they had that thin-styrofoam texture to them which is acceptable in snack food, but less than virtuous.  As a whole, these chips proved serviceable but not exceptional- those looking for a familiar barbecue-like experience will be satisfied, but if you’re in Hungary, you might as well go for something a little more exotic.  Say, for example, actual sheep-pigs.

Stars: 2/4

Spiciness Rating: None

Pros:

- Decent barbecue flavor, may eventually remind you of crispy bacon

Cons:

- More barbecue-y than bacon, not particularly inventive

- The crisps themselves aren’t very crunchy

Leader Price Tuilles Apero Gout Bacon

Sadly images of the Bacon flavored
variety aren't online, but the color is a
slightly darker red: less Santa Clause,
more crispy burned meat.

Though the French generally love everything ham-related, I’m under the impression that bacon is not part of the French repertoire.  Nonetheless, I keep running on to bacon-flavored snacks left and right, far more frequently than I did in the United States.  This represents considerable progress for bacon-flavored foods, which formally were reserved for the pet-food aisle.

Suffice to say, virtually every French salty-snack which comes in multiple flavor variants will have a bacon-flavored variety, just as assuredly as we can count on Barbecue flavored varieties in the United States.  Thus, following up on my earlier review of the Sour Cream and Onion flavored roof tiles, I am reporting here on the Leader Prices’s Tuiles Apero Gout Bacons. 

I can't think of anything
I can say that would improve
upon the image and what it
implies.

Once again, these ‘Snack Shingles’ are unapologetic knock offs of Pringles, but with the following notable differences: thicker and more evenly applied flavoring (a big plus over regular Pringles), and larger thicker crisps that offer more surface area for the tongue to explore and ravish(did that sound sexual?)  Oh, last difference, they’re also less than half the price.

But what about the bacon flavoring?  Well, the aroma of salty bacon that wafts out as you pop the card board top is more than a little promising.  The flavor as it hits the tongue is satisfying but reflects the limitations of the French conception of how bacon ought to taste: salty and smokey, yes, but little representation of the sweeter flavors we’ve come to expect from our typical bacon-with-breakfast. 

The French have no excuse for not lapping
up more of the maple-juice: the
descendents of their lost North American
colony are big producers of it!  Apparently,
it is nearly as many magical  properties
as vinegar. 

Still, combined with the buttery texture of the crisps themselves, these delivered a satisfying experience, even if the message still hasn’t gotten out that we like our bacon with maple syrup, thank you very much.  (‘Maple syrup, c’est quoi?’)  Basically these will do as a smokier substitute for salty-flavored Shingles as well, so if you want a cheaper and flavorful alternative to Pringles in France, you should definitely give these a shot.

Stars: 2½/4

Spiciness Rating: none

Pros:

- Nice smoky and salty flavor

- Flavoring is thickly and evenly applied compared to Pringles

- Crisps are slightly larger and thicker

Cons:

- lacking in the sweeter aspects of bacon-ness, like many other bacon flavored products in France

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

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!

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