The Hottest Flavor in Snacks Is ‘Cooked Too Long’ Nearly burnt chips, pretzels, and crackers are taking over the snack aisle

eater ^

[mylife]

Snack companies are always scrambling to figure out what the next hot flavor is, because The Market demands ever-changing options even though the perfection of sour cream and onion is right there. Chip and pretzel and puff makers experiment with making things pickle-y, or spicy, or putting spice on top of the other flavors, or making snacks taste like completely other meals, like pizza. But the latest trend isn’t a flavor at all. It’s a method, which in many ways leads to the absence of flavor, but which also is for many exactly the point. Get excited to buy burnt chips.

A few brands have made inroads into the overcooked market, to the thrill of anyone who explicitly scours a bag of potato chips to find the burnt bits at the bottom. Better Made may have started the trend with its “Rainbow” chips, which it first started mass-producing in 2005. The first potato chips, it says, used to look a lot more like Rainbow chips, but as potatoes with less sugar content became favored in chip production, the dark, caramelized color became rarer. “​​Better Made would collect the rejected dark chips and package them as ‘Rainbows’ but the supply was very limited and we were unable to meet the demand for them,” the company says in its product description. Eventually, it worked with farmers to develop a potato that would create a darker chip.

Herrs, Utz and Cape Cod have all introduced (or re-released) “dark” russet kettle chips Utz has also made “extra dark” pretzels, as has Unique. “We left our classic special sourdough pretzels to cook just a little bit longer for all our dark pretzel fans,”

Cheez-It introduced an “Extra Toasty” line of snacks “after years of fan requests.”

[mylife]

seem to? they are better!

[Trillian]

Are they trying to push another trend nobody wants?

[mylife]

eat yer raw tater

[Some Fat Guy in L.A.]

I’ve tried the Utz special dark pretzels. They’re OK, but I’ll stick with the originals.

[SamAdams76]

Last summer at camp, I put a pack of chicken quarters on the grill and completely forgot about them for a few hours. They were thoroughly burned and blackened.

Nevertheless, by the campfire that night, we munched on them and they were so good. We threw the remnants of them into the woods and next morning the bones were gone. I guess the forest animals liked them too.

We will do it again this summer.

[WASCWatch]

Bought a box of Wheat Thins a few weeks ago that were way overcooked. Taking them back. They are nasty.

At Chick-fil-A, I always ask for sandwich without pickle and well done fries. The waffle fries are not normally completely cooked.

[WASCWatch]

Best option on potato chips is to gently feel the bag to see how far up the bag you can feel the chips.

[Myrddin]

My wife was grilling some meat and veggies for fajitas one afternoon. She brought me one that was two whole habaneros peppers and three strips of carne asada. The peppers had that nice peachy flavor followed by searing heat. Enough to make my eyes tear, but I didn't dare touch them with habanero on my fingers. It's an acquired taste. Our pepper garden was unusually productive that year.

[JonPreston]

I did that with Nancy Murphy when I was 14 and got slapped.

[drSteve78]

“Cooked to Death”

[dragonblustar]

LoL!

[null and void]

Thought you’d appreciate that...