At my local supermarket there are two snack aisles. One is filled with chips with flavours like cheese, light and tangy, barbecue and simply "chicken", as if that's the chip equivalent of eating a wild, raw chicken, feathers and all.
That aisle is the snack equivalent of network TV reruns - safe, unsurprising and powered by nostalgia.
The second chip aisle is late-night SBS: unpredictable, subtitled and occasionally not appropriate for children. It's where I go for crisps from the US, Korea and China, for flavours like black olive and sundried tomato, roasted garlic oyster and South American barbecue.
While the market has changed over time, the chips in the "chicken and cheese" aisle are largely representative of what you'll find in supermarkets and convenience stores around Australia. Whenever there's a change to that standard chip aisle, it seems to cause quite the ruckus. Media report on the new flavour as though it's the latest salacious celebrity gossip, and social media opinions erupt like an orchestra made up only of soloists.
It happened with Kettle ginger beer and Doritos coriander, with Smith's Subway sub and Twisties/Donut King cinnamon donuts. And a couple of weeks ago it happened again when Twisties announced it would be releasing - hold on to your party poppers - chicken and cheese flavoured Twisties in the one bag.
Whether the new release is Twisties Chickeese (the actual name for the cheese-chicken mixed bag) or Red Rock Deli champagne vinaigrette and shallot, I always have the same question - why does this exist? What is the motivation for Twisties, a snack food company that, through decades of advertising, has convinced us that an accidentally invented extruded mix of corn, rice, oil and maltodextrin in the shape of a Sculpture by the Sea artwork is a normal thing to eat? Considering that Twisties hasn't said when Chickeese is being released, it seems as though the motivation is purely seeking attention.
But what about that other snack aisle, is that a constant rotation of gimmicks, or earnest attempts to create new, delicious and interesting flavours? To answer that question, a group of friends and I blind tasted 13 chips that many would consider to be the more unusual flavours on the market, including salmon sushi and wasabi, and hot and sour lemon-braised chicken feet.
The exercise was a wild and wonderful ride. Every few bites I'd think, "What the hell is this?", then find myself revelling at the sheer intensity and uniqueness of the flavour being hurled at me. I remember eating Oishi's matcha mousse, looking at the person next to me as thought I'd seen a sexy ghost, then instantly going back for another chip. How was it that matcha mousse, cheeseburger and fried-crab chips are not only better-tasting but far more accurate representations of their promised flavour than the average supermarket chip?
Even the chips that don't taste like what they promise are generally really enjoyable. Who cares that Jack 'n Jill's ramen flavour tastes instead like fried onions and mi goreng seasoning? It's delicious. El Sabroso's "guacachip" had no discernible avocado flavour but why does that matter when it tastes like a lighter version of one the greatest supermarket chips, Doritos cheese supreme.
There were only two chips I didn't like. Lay's avocado mustard tastes like a white-bread sandwich filled only and entirely with mayonnaise. And Turtle-brand vanilla chips were sweet (I enjoyed other sweet chips including Calbee honey butter and those matcha mousse chips) but tasted like the cloying artificial vanilla flavour used in mueslis made for children and honey-drunk ants.
These chips may be divisive but they're not always gimmicks. They're the genuine attempts of flavour engineers to turn radical ideas and even complicated dishes into delicious snacks. It was a reminder, if anyone needed one, that while Twisties is trying, successfully, to get attention for mixing the two least innovative flavours in the snack industry, the chip brands of other countries aren't just exploring the cosmos, they're bringing it to the table.
If Chickeese and the limited-release attention grabs of the chicken and cheese aisle are the flavours of the future, then the future is grim - a tourist strip food hellscape designed to give a million one-off customers a terrible experience. There's no need to offer anything good because the business model doesn't need repeat customers.
But if it tastes like matcha mousse and cheeseburger chips then it's a million different cuisines, cultures, flavours and ideas colliding, sometimes producing game-changing Hollywood-blockbuster brilliance, sometimes box office failures, that might, because they're so weird, be loved by a wholesome subculture.
That future is the opposite of the TV rerun - weird, interesting and fun. What future we get depends on what we eat.
