A Tale of Two Snack Foods
Relax, I'm not going to riff off the 'best of times/worst of times' thing. What I am going to do is present two of my favourite snack foods.
Firstly, these bad boys: Smith's Salt and Vinegar Crisps. God I missed them when I lived in Colombia. They can reduce you to tears when you've got a mouth ulcer. And I love the way that the packet is pink - they're so not feminine. You could put silk tassels on the corners, and it still wouldn't matter because they're rock.
Secondly, this is snack-food brutality, the Colombian way: Todo Rico, or, roughly translated, "everything yummy", where everything is plain potato chips (the no-nonsense foundation), salted plantain crisps (with a hint of sweetness) and chicharrones, or pork crackling (crunch, boom - like Batman sound effects for your tastebuds). Sum of it's parts, better, etc - you can fill it in; I'm already thinking how when I finally get back to Bogota, I will not make it out of the airport before I scoff a packet of these guys. Como te extraño!
And sorry, but it's always the best of times and the worst of times when you love chips from different continents. Chip Olympics anyone?
posted by Mark @ 11:34 pm
5 Comments:
My friend is always interested in how snack foods differ when he travels, and I sometimes take notice too. They really do seem to be something localized in this global economy. In Canada, not far from New England, I saw a Ketchup-flavored version of potato chips we have -- weird! Your two pictures look utterly foreign to me, but probably just because I don't recognize the patterns and words, not because the general look is that different.
I like a good Salt and Vinegar chip (crisp) from time to time, a flavor we didn't have where I grew up but they do have here in New England. The cheap ones that are all chemicals really wreck your mouth though!
I still don't know what Vegemite is, 20 years after hearing Men At Work sing about it, but is that a jar of it next to the Smith's?
"He just smiled and gave me a Vegemite sandwich" - well spotted! Vegemite is a yeast extract, whatever that means. The best theory I've heard is that it's gunk left over in the vats after brewing beer. Does that make you want to try it? As much as Australians love Vegemite, we're also strangely proud that the rest of the world thinks it's disgusting. Funny eh? In England they have Vegemite-flavoured chips called Twiglets. They're pretty gross.
That is weird about the different flavours across the border. The snack foods conglomerates probably do research with focus groups and stuff and from that they decide that ketchup-flavoured ones would work in Canada but not the US. My question is, how do you get into one of the focus groups?
I LOVE salt and vinegar chips!
But...ketchup flavored??? Perish the thought.
My sister studied in Melbourne for a semester, and brought back some Vegemite. To me, it was foul! She thought so, too. She only brought it back as a novelty.
Wow!!! I would LOVE to try those COlombian chips. They sound fab.
I also like the girly pink bag on the first ones.
I like a nice 16-oz. Coke with those. Now you've ruined my diet.
b
I can't belive you didn't give pickled onion Monster Munch a mention. How soon they forget!
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