A couple months ago, we had some friends travel down from Toronto to vacation in New York and Washington DC. Since DC is so close to Baltimore, a dinner date was arranged to meet up with them at Founding Farmers DC. Sadly, The Minx had to go solo because I had to work, but she brought back presents in the form of Canadian maple syrup and a couple of savory snacks that we don't get in the States.
One was a potato chip from Ruffles called All Dressed (or Assaisonnées in French). I guess the idea is to combine all the condiments you would typically associate with potato chips into one super flavor. The primary flavors for All Dressed are barbecue, ketchup, salt, and vinegar. In reading the ingredients, there's also a bunch of chemicals I'm not familiar with, but I have to assume they contribute to that weird sour cream taste that permeates all the Frito-Lay chip flavors (even the sweet ones, which is really gross). That said, it's a pretty tasty chip that's a nice balance of savory and ketchup-sweet.
The other snack was Hickory Sticks (or Juliennes à L'Hickory in French). I always loved potato sticks as a kid, so I was especially looking forward to these. The extra crispiness of such tiny slivers of potato really appeal to my texture-conscious palate. This version has a pleasant smokiness and, while they're a little too salty, I can enjoy them in small doses. The Hickory Sticks are branded as being made by Hostess, but both snacks are products of Frito-Lay Canada.
I suppose there's some special marketing reason why Frito-Lay would want to have some Canada-centric snacks, but I think Americans would enjoy these just fine. I hope we'll start seeing these in US supermarkets in the near future.
Posted on Minxeats.com.