Lay's "Do Us a Flavor" Taste Test

Lay's Potato Chips, in their infinite corporate wisdom, created an exciting advertising campaign that also outsourced the work of their R&D department; the annual Do Us a Flavor contest. Folks submit their flavor ideas to Lay's, who then chooses four flavors to develop and sell for a limited time. The general public votes for their favorite flavor which will join the chip canon and earn a big cash prize for the "flavor ambassador" who submitted it.

They've done this contest for three years or so now, with some hits and some big misses. 

One of their first trios included sriracha, cheesy garlic bread and chicken & waffles. The first two weren't too shabby and pretty true to their inspiration. However, the chicken and waffles chips made me realize that sometimes imitation is not the sincerest form of flatter, but just downright weird. They were too realisitic and my brain couldn't process a thin slice of potato tasting like maple syrup, much less fried chicken. 

Last year, they upped the weird factor by introducing us to bacon mac 'n' cheese (which tasted just like gas station Hot Fries!), mango salsa (I despise mangoes), wasabi ginger, and cappuccino chips. I was underwhelmed and kinda grossed out by that group. 

While I questioned their judgement last year, I must admit the process is interesting and they are able to produce on-point flavors that accurately represent the inspirations (however misdirected). And they made an exciting update to put texture into play, too. You can submit your flavor with a "chip style" -kettle cooked, wavy or traditional - that I find to be a big influence on the success of the chip. For example, cappuccino chips shouldn't be wavy, because what on God's green Earth would you dip that in? But waves are a perfect fit for a salsa-flavored chip; the pairing with guac is obvious!

Lay's has just released their newest quartet of contenders and we bought three of the four flavors this weekend. The 2015 Do Us a Flavor nominees are wavy West Coast Truffle Fries, Southern Biscuits and Gravy, kettle cooked Greektown Gyro, and New York Reuben. We picked up the Truffle, Gyro and Reuben chips at our local Ingles Market (on sale!); they are supposed to be available nationwide within the month.

Prior to Lay's release of 2015 flavors, we found a bag of Larry the Cable Guy biscuits and gravy chips at Big Lots (artisinal grocery it's not) for less than $2. Enjoying our youthful sense of immortality, we bought a bag. They were disturbingly realistic and tasted like fresh sausage and creamy, peppery gravy... and that made me very uncomfortable. Maybe I take issue with the re-imaginging of Southern staples, but I just can't wrap my head around a porky potato. Needlesss to say, we skipped the Lay's version. Let's assume it's lovely and true to breakfast...but spare me. 

Only a hit in the midwest?
Data from 8.3.15 on www.dousaflavor.com

Here's our review of the other three flavors. Like any good girl of Irish descent, I do have a specific rubric for my potato products; so we based our judgments on the following criteria: is the flavor a good interpretation of the intended dish; is the flavor enjoyable on its own, unrelated to the original food (would you eat these again regardless of novelty); and how successful is the flavor:"chip style" pairing?

NEW YORK REUBEN (traditionally cut chips)

This was the flavor J was most excited about. After working in a deli for many years, he is a connoisseur or reubens and was very eager to try them. I'm a casual reuben-eater, if for no other reason than my palate is not rye-bread-friendly. 

Overall, the flavor is okay, but the purest notes are of rye. So, the one item that I generally substitute on my sandwich is the primary flavor of the chips. But, once I got used to that twangy taste, I could eat these fairly mindlessly and enjoy them. J was anticipating more of a mustard/sauce flavor in addition to the meat and rye, and was pretty disappointed. 

I think the flavor is approachable outside of the context of just being a reuben chip and that's helped by the super thin texture that just screams picnic or late night munchies. No frills, just like a basic reuben, but it's hard to knock the novelty kitsch. 

I've never seen a chart using corned beef-colored graphics.

GREEKTOWN GYRO (kettle cooked chips)

I wasn't anxious to try these given how poorly I handled the fake-sausage chips. But I think Lay's did a great job compiling all the diverse and complex flavors of a gyro to make a multi-faceted chip. You get a subtle beefy taste - the way barbeque chips taste more like sauce than literal smoked meat; but thankfully, you also get the tzatzki sauce with fresh cucucmber and dill; a little onion and a hint of feta. J put it best saying "these are delicious" and they are probably the best out of the three. 

I love the choice of kettle chips for this flavor, too! When I think of gyros, I immediately think of the crispness of the Greek salad stuffed in the pita with the meat. These extra crispy chips are reminiscent of the crunch of the lettuce, onions and cucumbers you find in a quality gyro. They really added authenticity of flavor and dimension by choosing the kettle chips. 

I'll be casting my vote for this flavor!

WEST COAST TRUFFLE FRIES (wavy chips)

Because we aren't independently wealthy and maybe because the tv cooking shows we watch belabor how much the oil is overrated, we don't eat many truffle-laden foods. But I anticipated these chips to taste refined, with a light truffle perfume and a subtle flavor. The picture also included melted cheese (Parmesan? Asiago?) and fresh herbs on the potato wedges, so I was looking for bright, clean flavors. These fell short. They were like a delicate version of sour cream and onion chips; maybe chives instead of "onion" and a little more garlic than your plain old sc & o chip. But certainly nothing to write home about. They tasted fine but I hardly find them innovative. 

They do work well as a wavy chip because I could see them pairing well with onion dip, or something to impart more bold flavor. 

Meh. 

The Do Us a Flavor contest is really a fun diversion for summertime snacking. We look forward to seeing what's new and trying the experimental flavors. However, I am a year-round salty snacker. J has a huge sweet tooth, but I crave salty snacks, especially chips. As enjoyable as this is, I'm probably just as happy with a bag of plain rippled chips and french onion dip. 

If you are looking for a REAL chip experience with bold, unique flavors and unparalleled quality, head to The Gourmet Chip Company in Asheville, NC. They are a handmade chip (and pressed sandwich) shop in the middle of downtown with the best flavors I've ever found. They'll fix your chips right in front of you with awesome combinations like Belgian dark chocolate and apple-smoked bacon (The Corsican) or sun-dried tomatoes, pecorino romano cheese, fresh basil, sea salt and balsamic vinegar (The Italiano) at reasonable prices. And they have a retail shop with packaged chips, too! It takes a lot of will power for us to not stop here everytime we're nearby (thanks in part to crappy city parking). 

(foreground) Pressed Cuban sandwich with The Buffalo chips and
 (background) The Pressed Parisian Melt with The Italiano chips

Fancy artisinal chip shop or not, I highly suggest venturing outside of your comfort zone with chips. The things you like and dislike, just might surprise you! 

Taste-Test:mberry Miracle Fruit Tablets

We are now of that age where when friends come to town or a celebration is called for, we're not longer interested in or able to go out for an all-night bender full of booze, psychotropic drugs, dancing and rough housing. Instead, we have game nights and taste tests. Go ahead, laugh, but last night's taste test adventure was truly mind blowing.

A few weeks ago, we ordered a 14-count pack of mberry tablets. These dissolving tabs are made from synsepalum dulcificum, commonly known as miracle fruit. The berry, native to West Africa, contains a glycoprotein called miraculin which "plays an active role in altering how the mind perceives tastes.(It)...coats the taste buds, temporarily modifying their shape, which causes the taste receptors to interpret certain flavors differently." Which means that after eating miracle fruit (or dissolving an mberry tablet on your tongue) foods which normally taste sour or bitter will taste sweet.

Last night, while visiting friends we brought a platter of tart and distinctively sour foods to eat with our tablets.  We brought strawberries (famed by mberry users to be the ultimate taste-test), lemons, kiwis, pomegranate seeds, salt and vinegar chips, hot sauce and fresh jalepeno (though mberry has limited, if any effect, upon most spicy food), sour cream, granny smith apples and dill pickles. We also scrounged through their kitchen and added red onion, pickled ginger, Parmesan cheese and shots of apple cider vinegar.

I, myself, am guilty of mis-using the phrase "taste-test" to describe trying that isn't particularly new to me like a restaurant's take on a well-beloved dish, this is more like "sampling" - where you give something a go just for the hell of it. Traditionally "taste-test" means trying something new without any concept of what it is or how it should taste. 

Our taste-test was of the purest form but with the added twist of being completely disorienting. Mberry suggests that you use your tablets at a "flavor tripping party" - and that title is not for dramatic effect - because you are eating very familiar foods that look and smell the same as always, however, their flavors are completely different. 

The granny smith apple, is one of the most tart, drool-inducing varieties of apple. But after the mberry, theses slices tasted like any sweet red delicious apple. The pickles still had the flavor of dill, but had lost their pickled-twang. Nick commented that he'd never realized how sour pomegranate seeds normally are until he ate them with the tabs and they were almost flavorless. And the kiwi almost lost its tart distinctiveness by becoming indistinguishable from any other sweet fruit. 

It was hard enough wrapping our minds around the fact that we no longer knew what food should taste like, but we also realized how involved the rest of our body is in distinguishing flavor. All the foods still smelled the right way and the highly fragrant and acidic items - like chips and vinegar - still affected other parts of our mouths and throats. We threw back shots of apple cider vinegar and on our tongues it tasted like sweet cider or juice, but our throats, cheeks and soft palates still felt the tingle and burn. 

The three runaway successes were the lemon, strawberries and sour cream. As a child, I found the easiest way to eat strawberries was with a cup of sugar to dip them in. With the mberry, they tasted exactly like that saccharine childhood snack; and as Kristen pointed out, as an adult it's almost too much sweetness. The lemons tasted like the most perfected lemonade and we ate them like oranges - sucking all the juice and savoring their pulp. And the sour cream was like a deflated whipped cream - and anything dipped in it, from fruit to chips, was made even more sweet and creamy. (On that note, remember that despite it all tasting good in your mouth, some combinations may not sit well in your stomach - like large quantities of sour cream and pickles). 

The strength and length of effects of the tablets vary from person to person but last between 15 minutes to two hours; and the only way to tell is continue sampling food to see when your normal sense of taste returns (again, be careful with eating large quantities of funky stuff!). 

This was a great experience and so much fun for us. For a few bucks a person we were able to have our minds blown and experience food euphoria - much less expensive and drastically safer (the only ingredients are miracle fruit powder and cornstarch) than indulging in other items we could dissolve on our tongues for fun! I highly recommend this product for a disorientingly great time with friends or the most whimsical diet plan ever - why eat chocolate cake when you could have an mberry and lemon?  

Middle Earth Munchies at Denny's

"Hobbits eat at least seven meals known as breakfast, second breakfast, elevenses, luncheon, afternoon tea, dinner and supper." - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

In addition to being foodies, we are nerds. We love cult classics and pop culture references, we read constantly and have innumerable books in our house, play board games weekly and get fan-boy excited about upcoming blockbusters, including this year's installment of The Hobbit, The Desolation of Smaug. 

To incorporate our geek enthusiasm and hunger, we decided to venture to Denny's to try out their Hobbit-inspired menu for our "supper." (They also did a menu for the first of the three Hobbit films, which debuted last year; we didn't sample that one).

I thought they'd only have a few items, but was happily surprised to see a wide variety of options to suit any Middle Earth mealtime.

The menu features several "luncheon", "dinner" or "supper" options including a hellaciouly spicy burger inspiring by the dragon Smaug and a dwarves feast of turkey, dressing and gravy. They have a wide menu for the sweet-toothed hobbit (especially one seeking a tasty treat to share at "afternoon tea," like woodland elf pies, Radagast's red velvet pancake puppies (like a fritter), and two pumpkin-themed drinks for Bard the Bowman. 

I think if a restaurant has a specialty that they're known for, that's your best bet for quality and value; so being at Denny's, we went for breakfast foods. Jordan "built his own Hobbit slam" with eggs, hashbrowns and Hobbit-special menu items sweet potato pancakes and breakfast sausage. 

I ordered the "Hobbit Hole." Go ahead, laugh, I think it's a horrible name too; but bear in mind that Hobbit holes are the doors to their hillside homes in the Shire and it's fashioned after a toad-in-a-hole (often called an eggie-in-a-basket) with two eggs inside cheddar buns, hasbrowns and I opted for make the 50 cent upgrade to breakfast sausage, too. 

Like many grand slam combinations, Jordan's order was HUGE. I think eggs and hashbrowns are standard fare, so they were your normal diner sides. However, the pancakes and sausage were terrific. It's rare that I diss any pancakes because despite our culinary skills, we cannot make good pancakes in this house; it's impossible. But these pancakes were better than average, and surpassed good. Most diners' pecan pancakes have a few chopped up pieces in them, but these had large chunks of candied cinnamon pecans. This was an incredibly sweet adjustment to already saccharine pancakes, but was wonderful. There was a cinnamon drizzle included in the presentation (with syrup on the side) and I don't know that it added much to the fluffy, flavorful and autumnal-tasting pancakes. 

The sausage was also delicious. This was a large sausage (like traditional English bangers) and was very flavorful. It tasted like a blend between a hot bulk sausage and an Italian sausage. The casing had a wonderful crispness and held inside it a juicy sausage that tasted of pepper, sage and onion. I'm a bacon purist the end, but I know we made the right choice for our meal's meat component. 

I was only slightly less pleased with my meal. My favorite breakfast my mom used to make me was her toad-in-a-hole. She'd butter the bread, cut it out with a cute cookie cutter and cook my eggs in that just right way that you can never explain to a waiter. My waiter didn't ask how I'd like my eggs cooked so, silly me, I just assumed they'd be cooked how momma makes hers - I suppose you'd call it over easy. However, I think they sliced a hard boiled egg into it's bun-case. The idea was wonderful but the application was kinda sloppy. Had the egg had a runniness to it that would've been sopped up in the fluffy, cheesy bun, it would have been perfect; this version fell just short. But you can't fail with hashbrowns and that wonderful "hearty breakfast sausage." The biggest joy for me was that my fear of having heartburn that surpassed the desolation of Smaug was never realized!

We both ended up being so satisfied and utterly full that we had to skip Hobbit "dinner!" 

If you've got a Denny's franchise nearby, this is certainly worth a stop, if for nothing more than being a fun novelty to bring Middle Earth to your dining table. It would certainly be a good precursor or follow up to a screening of The Hobbit,  out December 13 (in US theaters). 

And according to this sci fi bloke, eating like a Hobbit is a great way to diet. No really, he kinda make sense.