The Hottest Flavor in Snacks Is ‘Cooked Too Long’

[mystery-ak]

The Hottest Flavor in Snacks Is ‘Cooked Too Long’

Nearly burnt chips, pretzels, and crackers are taking over the snack aisle
by Jaya Saxena Mar 15, 2022, 9:15am EDT

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 in the past few years, which Utz describes as having a “deep, robust flavor” that highlights the natural caramelizing of the sugars in the potato. The approach isn’t limited to potato 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,” says Utz in its product description. “The Utz Dark Specials have a bolder kiln-fired taste and an extra, satisfying crunch.”

more
https://www.eater.com/22977659/burnt-potato-chips-extra-toasty-cheez-it-trend?ICID=ref_fark

[mystery-ak]

If you are lucky enough to get the Utz brand try their  “dark” russet kettle chips...OMG

They had them at our Walmart and we bought several bags....next time we were there they were all gone...but I noticed two UTZ distributors inventorying their products and I asked them why they stopped re-supplying the chips and that my family loved them...ever since then they have been in stock..lol

[roamer_1]

When mamma makes chocolate chip cookies, she always saves me the 'dunkers'. Rightly called dunkers too - But man are they tasty. Same with pizza. Do you know how hard it is to get a pizza with truly browned cheese? And that's where ALL the flavor is - Not just the flavor in the cheese, but the flavor of all the other ingredients getting cooked into the thing...

But sorry. Burnt chips are horrid.