Pringles LOUD Crisps: The Power of Powder

These Days, We Like it Loud
Pringles is latching on to the latest trend in snacking, discarding delicacy and embracing a maximum-firepower approach to its newest products.  Maybe it's because an aging population is losing its tastebuds or maybe its because thrill-seeking is the new frontier for snack foods, but these days you can't seem to go wrong with amping up your tastes to be spicier, saltier, bigger, and bolder.

For Pringles, the result is the new LOUD line, a collection of rustically thin corn crisps with extra-audacious quantities of flavored coatings.  Actually putting these things in your mouth could make a thoughtful taster a little nervous when they consider that they are essentially ingesting many teaspoons of powder; after all, we don't typically eat seasonings straight out of the spice jar, and surveying these thick-coated crisps, resembling victims of a spice-laden dust storm, induced in me a temporary shudder.  Nonetheless, we at the Food Kingdom pressed on.

Rugged and encrusted in their flavor mixtures, these crisps are ready to roar.   But how much powder is too much? (Clockwise from the top: Fiery Chili Lime, Spicy Queso, Mighty Margherita Pizza, Salsa Fiesta, and Super Cheesy Italian)

A Foundation of Coarse-Ground Corn
The taste of all five crisps we sampled were heavily influenced by the foundational note of stone-ground corn that forms the base layer of the crisps, though two of the five are billed as "grain and vegetable crisps" and feature a mix of corn, rice, barley, oats, potatoes, carrots, peas (!), and dried spinach.  Whereas traditional Pringles crisps are build upon a fairly neutral white potato base that allows the sprinkled-on flavor to dominate and define the taste of the end-product, the corn and grain tastes are earthy and assertive.  The hearty crunch of the slightly thicker-than-usual crisps demanded a "loud" response from the flavoring component.  Now we'll turn to each individual flavor and survey the mixed results.

Super-Cheesy Italian
These aim to mimic the flavor of cheesy garlic bread, and the ingredient list gives us reason to hope for success, boasting real olive oil, garlic, onions, and cheddar and Parmesan cheeses.  These all come through, albeit mildly, and if you really concentrate you can taste the yeast extract asserting a faint bready note.  The problem comes when these flavors from the coating mix with the flavors residing in the chip itself.   We know we don't want peas in our guacamole: do we want them in our cheesy garlic bread?  What about oats, barley, rice, and dried spinach?  Though none of these blunt flavors are all that individually strong, collectively they have the force to interrupt the overall flavor flow.  In the end what we wind up with is less cheesy garlic bread and more of a decent veggie pizza on whole grain crust with pesto sauce.  For his part, James N. threw his away after one bite, commenting "It tasted like the very worst fake Parmesan cheese on a bad weird crispy shell." 

A close-up of Super Cheesy Italian shows the fascinating texture of these complicated chips. By process of elimination, I figure those big red specks must be bits of whole corn.  The peas and spinach add a lot of color and, frankly wreck the mood.  The garlic bread of my fondest memories was greasy and yellow with little specks of green from the parsley. These put one more in the mind of pesto and pea soup.

Mighty Margherita Pizza
This was an inexcusable piece of hubris on Pringles' part, resulting in the weakest entry.  The only people that would have an interest in this chip would be people familiar with and fond of the taste of the real Pizza Margherita, and these people know that its appeal comes from the freshness of its ingredients.  A dried version would always be a faint echo of the real thing.  So yes, there's real tomato powder on these chips, along with real powdered basil, but these preserved products taste very little of the genuine article.  Curiously, there's no mozzarella cheese (no cheese of any kind, actually) on these chips. Perhaps the realized that the cognitive dissonance of "dried and powdered fresh mozzarella" was a little too jarring.  This chip also features the grand and vegetable blend as its base layer and, as before, this native flavor competes too much with the flavors meant to evoke Pizza Margherita.  James N. concurs, writing "As I opened the Margherita pizza one I shook my head, 'pizza chips are never good.' and this one did not prove to be the exception."

Tomato powder is plentiful here, accumulating in little drifts on the curves of the sickly green crisps, and calling to mind the petrochemical plant in Antonioni's "Red Desert".

Spicy Queso
This one's a winner and it shows that often the most straightforward flavors are the best.  This chip marries the taste of a perfectly respectable tortilla chip with that of movie-style nacho cheese, resulting in a delightful movie-nachos experience.  There's very little subtlety at work here, just copious amount of day-glow orange powder, potently spiked with the taste of jalapeños.

As sensually shaped as a Brancusi sculpture, these chips radiate a mellow orange glow that's matched with the rich processed-dairy notes of the powdered nacho cheese and kept perky and alive by the kick of hot peppers.

Salsa Fiesta
These chips easily have the most depth of flavor of the five and also taste the most realistic, which is a bit ironic considering that they boast "natural and artificial flavors."  The taste of lime juice and cilantro is unmistakeable yet neither are mentioned in the ingredient list.  The depth, I think, comes from the dried black beans and paprika, both dark rich flavors that create layers of taste, as their base notes are accented by the brighter flavors of onion, tomatoes, and herbs.  This chip isn't just loud, it's also harmonious.

They don't look like much, but they're the most convincing salsa-on-a-chip experience you can buy.  Long ago Doritos had a "Salsa Rio" flavor that perfectly captured the flavors of pico de gallo, but it hasn't been on the market for two decades and none of their other salsa flavors have come close. 

Fiery Chili Lime
This moniker is two-thirds true.  The flavors of Asian sweet chili paste are strong here, as is the convincing taste of artificial lime juice.  But for something that claims to be fiery, the heat level is relatively low, especially compared to the Salsa Fiesta chip we just tasted. We saved this one for last, convinced we should proceed as one would with a flight of wines, starting with the mildest flavors and progressing to the strongest.  This chip should actually be tasted third at your tasting party, or at least fourth. The overall flavor is more potent than that of the Spicy Queso chip, but the spice is milder  Quibbling aside, these chips are zesty and addicting.

These chips win the prize for most artfully sprinkled, as the flavors cluster unevenly, veering from deep crimson at the most intense spots to a blending of reddish orange and yellow that recall a Tequila Sunrise...which would actually go nicely with these at your next happy hour, if they'll let you bring your own munchies.

Conclusions

Of the five flavors on offer, the three with a pure corn base were easily the most successful.  The grain and vegetable chips just have too many "off" flavors to complement any added flavorings, and should probably be skipped.  James N. also adds that all of the flavors suffer a certain lopsidedness of flavoring, for which there is visual evidence in the clustering of the powder on the chip surface, as seen above.  He explains further, "all of them suffer from having a very poor balance of flavoring. One bite would be fairly mild and then the next bite would be coated in the flavor powder and just overwhelm. Maybe that’s what makes them loud, but it’s also what makes me not want to eat any more of them."  Nonetheless, for as long as these are around, we do have some full-throated new additions to our chorus of snacking options.

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