JUNK FOOD JUNKIE PART 2...LAY'S NEW FLAVOR POTATO CHIPS...CHICKEN & WAFFLES, SRIRACHA OR THAT OTHER ONE?
Ahh...the salty crunch of
potato chips as a snack has been around since the mid 1800's, believe it or not. Outside of adding some ridges or making them waffle like the basics have always been the same, thin cut potato slices deep fried (or baked) and salted. It's the flavors that have changed over the years and even today they are still trying to come up with new tastes to entice more people to snack it up. So it is that
Lay's has begun a new contest to select a new flavor. After taking online and polls and whatever, they came up with 3 new flavors to test out then you can vote and the winner will become a regular on your local supermarket shelf.
Your choices are chicken and waffles, sriracha and cheesy garlic bread. I decided to pass on the cheesy garlic bread since they were just a parmesan and garlic flavor--I mean how hard is that, you can already get cheddar flavor and other cheesy delights so it wasn't so special to me. The other two however, caught my eye and of course I just had to try them.
Upon first bite of the chicken and waffles my taste buds are inundated with maple syrup flavor, in the beginning it just overwhelms everything else. As I try more some of the other flavors do come out but they are very subtle. Supposedly there is some chicken flavoring in there but it just get the taste of the seasoning that would be on fried chicken like garlic and paprika. I also get a taste of brown sugar which along with the maple gives them a salty sweet flavor that isn't awful but it also isn't something I felt I could eat a lot of.
For the sriracha, the first rush of flavor I get is a sweet hotness, almost like their barbecue flavor, but then the spicy really kicks in, and the more you eat the spicier they get. There are also other subtle flavors here like garlic and paprika again and some kind of slight cheese flavor, however, these totally go out the door the more you eat and it's just hot and spicy and depending on how hot you like things it could be too much, which would be one way to keep people from eating too many of them.
Of these two I'd choose the sriracha as my flavor of choice which means it's probably not going to win and America will vote for cheesy garlic bread or something, just because it's safe. It would be interesting if they could show some breakdown of how which parts of the country voted for which flavor. Though I'm sure sriracha would go over well in southeast Asian countries since it's a spice flavor that originates in Thailand so Lay's could open up a whole new market if America doesn't vote for it. We'll see, fingers crossed and don't forget to vote! (I wonder if more people will vote on this than voted in the past election.)