![]() ![]() And while there remains a special place in my heart for original Goldfish… man, the high-octane version is really something. I bring them up only because, generally speaking, I tend toward being a snack originalist, believing that, more often than not, the original version of something is the purest expression of its essence. While we're here, let's talk about Flavor Blasted Goldfish, which seem to invite a lot of possible double entendres I won't entertain here. Quite simply I cannot picture a world without handfuls of crunchy little Cheddar Goldfish. I think we as a society really underappreciate everything Pepperidge Farm does for us. We're here to celebrate Goldfish because they're goddamn amazing, a snacking empire unto themselves that exists as a subset of another snacking empire. But we're not here to parse the relative glycemic merits of assorted salty and sweet snacks. ![]() As we learned from the Goldfish commercials: You could eat them every day and your mom says that's OK. It should be obvious by now that nutritional virtuousness was in no way factored into performance on this list, and yet here Goldfish are in the top five. To paraphrase the Farmer in the Dell, and, more recently, Omar Little (*removes sunglasses*). The perfectly sized flecks of salt that tell your taste buds "it's OK, just one more handful." The more I write about Cheez-Its, the more I think we could have put them all the way at No. I'd never even really taken much time to think about how much I liked the fact that there were always a few extra-dark outliers in a box of Cheez-Its, and here they were laid out for me dozens of times over. It was as though they'd taken a special order just for me. At least I don't think it is.Īnyway, the Extra Toasty rendition had that extra-dark hue and depth of flavor on it that you get when you order a pizza well-done. Cheez-Its always tasted more, for lack of a better word, "real" to me than most of your mass-produced snack foods, and that isn't just me being persuaded by the "100% Real Cheese" marketing. AKĪ year or two back Cheez-Its rolled out an "Extra Toasty" variety and they were a revelation, not only in their own right, but in how they made me see a food that had always been near the top of my snack list in an entirely new light. Plus, you get to rip it apart with your hands. ![]() Whether you're getting it in the white or dark variety, Big Kat or mini - and, yes, the green tea - there is no candy so adept at taking the mundane and transforming it into something amazing as the Kit Kat. This is a whole that completely transcends its parts, with little sugar crystals dancing on your tongue and the thick walls of chocolate that make it easy to break the four pieces apart melting the minute it hits your tongue, tying the whole thing together. Must be some sort of magical alchemy, because when that plain ol' chocolate hits those milquetoast layers of cookie wafers, something clicks, and clicks loudly. And the milk chocolate's good and all, though it's no different than the version you'd get on most candy bars. Wafers are the bane of most shelves, the treats that are doomed to the bottom of many a grandma's cookie jar. Because, frankly, this should not be as good as it is. Let's briefly ignore the distinct and curious befuddlement you get when you come across Kit Kat flavors like green tea, vinegar, and corn in an international market and focus on the OG version. They need to come out with a "Simply Chex With Just a Few Pretzels for Matt" version. Yeah, I know I should go pretzel-heavy early to avoid such predicament, but sometimes life is hard and you just want what you want, OK? And yes, I realize you can get "Simply Chex" now, but that feels like cheating. ![]() My own lack of self-control and the occasional pretzel-heavy bag has burned me too many times with a disappointingly Chex-free situation when things move towards the bottom of the bag. My one slight Chex Mix-related quibble involves the pretzels. It even had the vision to market its own version of puppy chow, which I'm pretty sure caused me to black out the first time I tried it. Some of its more recent sweet-salty experiments are the work of some kind of evil genius. I had to stop buying the Cheddar version, as it is not safe to have us in the same room. Chex Mix, when at its best, is transcendent. I love Chex Mix, but my esteemed colleague Khushbu Shah loves it more and is incensed that it's not in the top five, and is even placed below Gardetto's. ![]()
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