Snack Attack
Whenever I travel to a foreign country, one of my favorite activities is heading to the local grocery store or corner store in search of unusual snacks. I’m especially fond of flavors of chips that reflect something very specific about the taste buds of the local culture. In Prague, you’ll find paprika spiced or ham flavored potato chips; in Mexico “chile con limon” is the favored flavor (now popular in the U.S., when I first went to Mexico in 1999, this flavor of chip was non-existent).
Surprise, surprise, others share this obsession and one place cataloging the world of snack foods online - unusual or otherwise - is Taquitos.net. There you’ll find snack food reviews of all things crunchy, sweet, salty or sickening, from Australian chips (I’m now obsessed with the food scientist or marketing team who dreamed up this one: Red Rock Deli Red Wine and Tuscan Herbs Deli-Style Potato Chips) to airline snacks to “snacks containing cereal.” Of course there are also bacon-flavored chips, or guacamole-flavored chips, or Old Bay-seasoned chips (really?) They even break down snacks in terms of their shape: spherical and ring-shaped snacks are yet another method of classification.
Also amusing: A gallery of various snack mascots - anthropomorphized onions, potatoes, bananas and a variety of racist spicy chip mascots.
—Renata
[above: Doritos Mexican Hot mascot]