Chips are easy to make. You take a potato, slice it up, drop
the pieces into hot oil, and voila… chips! Pretzels on the other hand take much more work. You have to figure out how to make
pretzel dough, kneed it, take small amounts of the dough and roll them into
long segments, then fold ‘em all up so that they take the classic pretzel shape,
then bake them. Seriously, who has
time to do that? It’s no wonder
there are so few people out there making pretzels.
Chips come in a variety of flavours. Nowadays, you can pretty well get chips
in any flavour you can imagine.
Sour Cream & Onion, Ketchup, Dill Pickle, Chicken Wings, Mesquite, Salt & Vinegar, and the list goes on and on. Granted, some of the available flavours do sound
absolutely disgusting, but obviously people are buying them or else they
wouldn’t make them. There are so
many options of potato chip flavours that depending on your mood that day, you can find
a chip that will satisfy your snack food needs. Pretzels on the other hand, well, they taste like
pretzels. No fancy flavours
there. I hope you like pretzel
flavour, because that’s all you’re going to get!
Pretzel manufacturers had such high hopes of success,
and kudos to them for trying, but one day they must have walked into their big pretzel
warehouse and realized they made way too many pretzels than the market
demanded. This forced them to ask
themselves some difficult questions, the most important of which was “What are
we going to do with all these pretzels?!”
It was during one of those executive pretzel meetings where the Vice
President of Pretzels accidentally dropped a pretzel into his yogurt (even he
preferred yogurt as a snack food over pretzels). Upset, he ate the pretzel anyway, and that’s when a little
light went off, and his eyes opened real wide! “This pretzel tastes less like pretzel if we mask its
flavour with yogurt!” So they
started covering their left over pretzels in yogurt, put them into smaller
bags, and marketed them as a healthier alternative to chips. They also tried covering them in
chocolate, although the health benefits start to become a little foggy with
that idea. I give them an “A” for
effort, but regardless of whether I've got “the facts” straight of the
inner workings of the pretzel industry, when it comes right down to it, it’s
still a pretzel. They’re not
fooling anyone.
Chips have a nice gentle crunch, and have
managed to find a perfectly balanced ratio between crunch intensity, and the
strength of their consumers teeth and jaw. It doesn’t take much effort to eat chips, and let’s be
honest, if you’re sitting at home eating chips, you’re down for the count, and likely not in any mood
to be expending any more effort or energy than absolutely necessary. Pretzels are just far too crunchy. If you bite a pretzel the wrong way,
there’s potential it could puncture your cheek. Now who wants to deal with that?
If you’re having a party, and you put out one bowl of chips and one bowl of pretzels, it’s guaranteed that you’ll be re-filling the chip
bowl several times throughout the evening. Most of the pretzels on the other hand will likely find
their way back into the bag at the end of the night, leaving the host to wonder
why they even bought them in the first place. Some
people try to mix the pretzels in with other things, hoping the combination of
alcohol and the munchies will confuse people into eating at least a couple, and
sometimes that works. In any good
snack mix though, the pretzels will always be the last to go, and if you find yourself faced with a bowl of remnant snack mix pretzels, just think
about how many hands have reached into that bowl, and pushed the pretzels
around in order to get to the cheesies and other little goodies first. Unless
you really want to catch a cold, you may want to pass.
So there you have it. If you haven't ever really thought about this, now you have, and I think we can all agree the verdict is out. Chips are awesome, pretzels are
not. Case closed.
Love it!!!! As usual, well articulated.
ReplyDeleteSee you mentioned Cheesies, but not where they fall in this mix. Clearly not a pretzel, but not a chip either but perhaps surpass both in awesomeness.
ReplyDeleteCheesies are more complicated, and are hard to pin down. Chips you can eat anytime. Pretzels you only eat if there's nothing else left. For Cheesies, you have to be in a Cheesies kind of mood, because you can get sick of 'em real quick. Cheesies are most enjoyable when you least expect it. You may find yourself in a situation where someone has a few Cheesies scattered amongst some other snack mix ingredients, and as soon as you have that first one, it's like WOW! You wonder to yourself why you haven't bought any Cheesies in something like 2 years!! You completely forgot how awesome they are!! So you rush out and buy some, but by that time the excitement has kind of passed, so they'll sit in your cupboard for a week or two, until you eventually remember "Oh yeah, I have Cheesies!!" You'll then polish off the entire bag in no time at all, but realize as you get near the bottom of the bag that you're kind of Cheesied out. The craving has once again passed, and back to chips you go. And so the cycle continues.
Deletethese are all very interesting thoughts and ideas, but I believe there is more of a challenge between salty snacks and sweet delights..i do wholeheartedly agree chips are the superior snack. My sexy figure comes directly from the goodness of the bottom of a ruffles sour cream n onion bag.(1995 fatman award winner) they are truly wonderful. Now at the same time I cannot sit back and let the pretzel get trashed. The pretzel is a great delivery system for some of the best dips in the world, such as Helluva Good dip. helluva on this good friday is especially good. but thats for another religous discussion...but there are so many dips to wade your pretzel into. all the cream cheese and philly dips. now after defending the twisted delicacy, I must admit the pretzel sticks suck, they will impale you. surprized nobody hasn't been mortally injured. ...as for cheezies, (both fluffy and cheetos style hard), smart food and ringo's, hickory sticks and other random snacks do not have the same satisfaction level of both the chip and the pretzel. Afterwards you never say i'm going to eat them again tomorrow like a bag of Sour Cream 'n' onion chips, they are the family that you visit and promise to get together more often at Christmas and you never call them, until next Christmas......and yes I did get sour cream n' onion Ruffles back after they were discontinued for the french onion style, spent many days calling and writing letters while living at Huntington. ..but in defence of the pretzel my friend Steve's mother makes a spicy pretzel mix that is fantastic....now pass me the peanuts, because they're tasty with this delicious beer.
ReplyDelete