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REVIEW: Pringles Restaurant Cravers “Mozzarella Sticks & Marinara”
If you think the title of this review seems a little bit like a collection of random words, you’re right. It seems like in the last year or so, with as many great new, all natural, low-sweetness and salt products that have come out, the mainstream snack food brands seem to have gone particularly crazy, combining new chemicals into combinations of flavors that have never before been found dusted on the outside of a chip.
Pringles have always struck me as a particularly offensive style of potato chip, bearing little resemblance to what we understand chips to be: thinly sliced potatoes fried in oil. Instead, Pringles grinds potatoes into a fine mash, dries that mash out, re-hydrates it, and then presses it into chip shapes…and somehow, the finished chip only contains 42% potato. Add to that the unholy flavors available, including “Chili Cheese Dog” and “Pizzalicious,” and you’ve got a real miracle of modern technology on your hands.
It was with only a small bit of surprise, then, when I encountered Pringles Restaurant Cravers “Mozzarella Sticks & Marinara” flavored chips today. These so-called “special edition” flavors also include “Onion Blossom” and “Mexican Layered Dip,” but unfortunately (?), these have not yet appeared at the neighborhood market.
So, the question of the hour is, did the evil geniuses at Proctor and Gamble manage to make a chip that could taste like both mozzarella cheese and marinara sauce, at the same time? After half a can, I’m still not really sure. There is definitely something happening. When you first put the chip in your mouth, you get a flavor that is almost reminiscent of marinara sauce. As I really thought about it, though, I realized that the sensation I was experiencing was not so much “tasting tomato sauce,” but was instead simply, “tingling.”
As you chew the chip, you do get a satisfying cheese flavor, that is a little bit smoother and milder than Pringles’ own “Cheese-Um” variety. The overall effect is not unlike eating mozzarella cheese sticks dipped in marinara sauce, but it’s also not unlike being so close to someone’s burp-breath, that you can actually taste it.
Whether or not Pringles manages to recreate the sensation of dining out in a moderately priced chain restaurant in fake-potato-chip-form is beside the point. The bigger question is who is demanding these flavors. I would wager that if you want mozzarella sticks, or an “Awesome Blossom,” it’s easy to jump in the car, find a Chili’s or an Outback Steakhouse, and go to town on the real thing. Trying to mimic these flavors on a chip is not only unsuccessful: it’s also completely unneccesary.
this is – quote – food we would give astronauts. if we totally hated astronauts.
Those Pringles are so wrong, they make baby Jesus cry.
LAY DOWN THAT WOOD SON