Utz Sour Cream and Cheddar

           Does anyone actually eat sour cream and cheddar in real life?  The flavoring mash up is definitely out there and there are dozens of sour-cream-and-cheddar potato chips, but where did this idea come from?  Are we supposed to imagine there are plenty of people out there who cut themselves slices of Wisconsin’s finest and dip them in a tub of sour cream, not-so-fresh from the udders of those self-same cows? 

There are certainly plenty of American culinary traditions I remain unaware of, but while searching for images for this review, it struck me that cheddar and sour cream are regularly combined in the fine American custom of stuffed baked potatoes.  Obvious one, Sea-bass! you’re thinking, I mean it’s like the potato chips are really the potatoes!  In my defense, I must note there have been baked potato flavored chips in which a studious attempt was made to realize the taste of the bacon bits and the baked potato itself, while this sub-genre exhibits no such ambitions.  So I’m still unconvinced that this wasn’t simply a mix up using two flavors that happen to go well together, and let’s leave it at that.

The origins of Sour Cream & Cheddar
group think revealed?  Not so fast...

Utz’s Sour Cream and Cheddar potato chips are basically a companion in design to their Onion & Garlic chips I reviewed earlier.  The flavoring may be different, but they share in common a smooth soft texture that dissolves easily in the mouth but lacks any sort of crunch, air bubbles, or interesting topography.  The texture does make it easy on the teeth and the tongue and facilitates the enjoyment of the orange colored flavoring, but I’m beginning to feel it’s a bit of a cop out compared to even average potato chips let alone kettle-cooked, and it also seems to lack some of the buttery oiliness of conventionally cooked chips.

The flavoring on these chips succeeds at its job; it genuinely evokes the taste of sour cream with cheddar (like I know, because I, like, totally dip my cheddar all the time)  without going too salty or too sour (the latter being an all too common tendency in cheese-oriented flavorings).  The chips at the top of the bag were a little light on the seasoning, but by the middle of the bag the amount of flavoring on each chip became consistent and in fact, highly satisfying and surprisingly addictive.  So while these chips are lacking in more robust texture and have some consistency issues, the overall quality of the flavoring helps raise this product back up to an average grade.  Or in other words, your car might look like a hand-me-down jalopy that came the worse for ware after an encounter with a misanthropic moose, and your sketchy boyfriend may still have all those awkwardly placed tattoos boasting of his membership in a totally ‘leet shop-lifting ring, but both can still put the moves on when it counts, which makes them worth the time of day if not necessarily much more than that.

"She may not look like much, but she's got
it where it counts, kid. I've made a lot of
special modifications myself.  She can make
the grocery run in .5 parsecs."

Stars: 2/4

Spiciness Rating: none

Pros:

- Nicely balanced cheddar and sour cream flavoring

- Surprisingly addictive

Cons:

- Smooth, flat chips are sub-par in texture and likely not to impress, unless you like that kind of thing along with your taste for slick rogues

Utz Onion and Garlic Potato Chips

            As promised, I’ve come full circle back to everybody's favorite proverbially cheap-as-chips brand, Utz, and I’ve got to hand it to them, you go in expecting some bog-standard variation, and you end up with something unusual and weird.  Garlic flavored chips, after all, are not as common as all that, so I was happy enough to acquire some for my personal delectation. 

Speaking of the weird, just to throw something out there, it occurs to me that Utz may have felt garlic flavored snacks may have some additional utility beyond mere pleasures of the tongue, perhaps in the realm of self-defense.  One ‘reviewer’ has already cautioned against garlic chips because of the unfortunate effects it may produce on subsequent amorous encounters, but I would propose the following solution: chicks before chips.  Incidentally, those suggesting that I bought these following my ill-fated escapade with the undead handmaidens of the Lahmian Court of the Silver Peak should put a stake in it.  Besides, knowing what I know about those ladies, they favor a liquid diet, and wouldn’t be caught alive eating chips anyway.

Few things are as dangerous as garlic
breath combined with your girlfriend,
in bed.

            These potato chips are small rounds, around 1.5-2 inches in diameter on average, and have a peculiar soft texture which is low on crunch, but that allows them to easily melt in the mouth.  They are basically very low-density in consistency, and biting into them is like crunching through a thin layer of styrofoam, which isn’t as bad as it sounds because they don’t taste like styrofoam.  All in all, the texture is definitely not superior in quality, but it is strange and different enough that I’m inclined to be a little lenient.  Any thick-potato chip purists will hate them, and the thin textures seems to absorb moisture relatively quickly outside of the mouth as well as in (ie., go stale in the cabinet), but otherwise they’re all right.

            The texture aside, the flavoring on the Utz chips is very strong, with a lot more emphasis on the garlic over the onion, (a consensus among all but one review I’ve seen for these).  The crisps were fairly salty, but not excessively so; unless you surge the sodium by eating a lot of them at once, your mouth will be pleasantly garlicked and not suffer any cascading denial of service attacks.  Just as Sookie Stackhouse’s perky daring more than compensates for her lack of class, the garlic flavorings lack of sophistication did not prevent me from appreciating its boldness.  While Utz’s Onion and Garlic chips are far from being nuanced or perfected in either form or flavor, I do appreciate the unique approach they bring to the table and the tongue and recommend them for garlic lovers, or anybody afraid of receiving the blood kiss from Neferata, Queen of the Damned.

This guy actually did
a minute long video review
of the Onion & Garlic chips,
which sounds ridiculous
until you consider how long
I spent writing this one.

Stars: 2/4
Spiciness Rating: Very Mild

Pros:

- A nicely bold garlic flavor that is not so common on chips
- Protection from bloodsucking vixens
- The weirdly thin crisps do melt in the mouth easily

Cons:

- The weirdly thin crisps are very far from being any sort of quality, crunchy potato crisp
- Those seeking more onion will likely be disappointed

Utz Sour Cream and Onion Potato Chips

While the shelves abound with exciting experiments in potato-chip futures, hi-tech flavor emulation, and thick-crunchy authenticitude (that’s authenticity with attitude), every now and then I feel a certain responsibility to report on the less glamorous workhorses of daily chip consumption.  These provide certain familiar, if unspectacular, pleasures for the mouth, and while relatively mundane in design, still exhibit certain variations that are worth examining.  After all, what good are the revolutionary vanguard without the common proletariat waiting in the wings?  Yes, sometimes one must forsake the glamour of all the organic-home-cut kettle chips made from potatos that were sung to daily by a Wisconsin children’s choir, or the lightly-braised-steak-in-onion-sauce-with-capers flavored chemical prodigies produced by the mad scientists in one of Lay’s subterranean lairs, and do some muckracking a-la Upton Sinclair, and see what we can discover wallowing in the common.

Utz’s Sour Cream and Onion chips are one of those things we will discover...and dissect!  (*Mad cackle*)

Ask yourself which you've eaten more
of: sour cream and onion dip or
sour cream and onion chips?  Then
the sad truth will dawn on you...

            Utz’s offering is conventional in most respects when compared to other Sour-Cream-and-Onion chips, including the little green specks that are supposed to remind one of green onions, although they are sparser on the Utz chips than the Lay’s variety.  The interesting difference is that they are also thinly covered with a white dandruff-like flavoring which tastes mildly sweet, like a sour cream dip.  The additional flavor layer is subtle but appreciable, making these sweeter than other chips in the sour-cream-and-onion genre, although sadly a bolder statement of the sour cream flavor would have made these chips more unique.

            Other than that, the chips are typical for Utz potoato chips: slightly smaller than Lays, cooked in a buttery oil, a little on the damp side but not dramatically.  As I said, garden variety chips, with their own slight little variation compared to others in their class.  That accomplished, allow me to note I am nowhere near done slumming with Utz chips, and down the line (though not immediately I promise you- we can only have so much Oliver Twist before we switch back to the Pride and Prejudice) I have plenty more Utz reviews to come!

Stars: 2/4

Spiciness Rating: None

Pros:

- Interesting powdery white sour cream coating adds a different element from most sour cream and onion chips

- Adequate in all other respects

Cons:

- Also unexceptional in most other respects

- There are better textured sour cream and onion chips out there

Utz Red Hot Flavored Chips

Utz chips tend to have a sort of a bargain bin appeal with the self-effacing packaging and the store-brand level prices, but every now and then you come upon something interesting.  Utz’s Red Hot Flavored chips might otherwise seem to be merely another tired iteration of a familiar 'spicy' barbecue-flavor formula if it weren’t for the fact that these chips actually are pretty damn hot, and even better, are thickly and consistently coated with tasty dark red spices, unlike many otherwise worthy examples in this category.  It’s pretty hard to find chips labelled as ‘spicy hot’ that live up to the name, but for once these chips do not disappoint!

Stare down into the volcanic maw of hell,
except much tastier.  Image courtesy of the
Village Voice, which actually wrote their own
rather gushing review of these!

We are not talking about particularly sophisticated fair here- besides the spicy flavor, there’s a mild sweet taste and nothing else to distinguish them as barbecue-type chips (no fancy-dancy spice rubs or mesquite aromas to be found here!), and the individual chips are thin and unimpressive in texture, however glorious they may be in color.  Nevertheless, I have come to seriously appreciate them as an unpretentious snack with a real fiery kick, and I would recommend them to anyone looking for some genuinely spicy and well-coated crunchy goodness at a low cost.  Also, they look like a river of molten lava spewing from Mount Doom, and taste just about as hot, so they are officially awesome.  Red has also been unidentified as the sexiest color, so you can think of this as that less-than-classy-but-goddamned-flashy guy or girl that sets the sheets on fire despite their lack of sophistication.

Your mouth, after eating spicy chips
too fast.  Your dentist will be very
upset, but your plastic surgeon will
smile.

A word of warning: carelessly eating these at high speed can result in your mouth igniting if you are not careful, as another reviewer experienced- though that didn't keep him from wanting more.  Yes, they first couple chips won't seem that bad, but like gambling debts, they heat will build up until they devour your soul.On the other hand, the ladies at Hot Chicks posted a review which I disagree with on just about every level.  Seriously, girls, you think the texture on these is good but they're not spicy enough?  I have only this to say.

Overall Rating: 3 Stars

Spiciness Rating: Hot!

Pros:- Wonderful spicy flavor with a real kick

- Flavoring is thickly and consistently coated across the chips in fire-engine red

Cons:- Little else to brag about in the flavor department besides the spiciness

- Texture is similarily unremarkable

- Possibility of damaging your gob if consumed recklessly