Combos – Pepperoni Pizza
When I think about snacks I tried or saw at stores growing up, I wonder to myself what happened to them. Whether they changed recipes, got retired or have managed to stay the same, I always get curious and nostalgic. And then I am reminded of how god damn old I have gotten since then. Time makes a fool of us all. The snack that got me down that rabbit hole today is Combos. But this particular flavour has been around for a long time…too long some may say.
The question here might be, how is this different from the other pizza flavoured Combos? Well, that one is a baked pretzel, whereas this is a baked cracker. Truthfully I don’t expect much different in flavour, and the difference will be in the choice of carbohydrate. I suspect though, if you are buying Combos to begin with,
The flavour is the very distinct combination of herbs and tomato sauce and cheese that you get in a typical pizza. The flavour gets the combination down pat pretty well, and it’s like eating a dried piece of pizza that got turned into a spread. If that doesn’t sound very appetizing…well you’re not entirely off the mark. It’s definitely giving off grade school vibes, in that it reminds me of pizza flavoured snacks I had way back in the day. In that way the nostalgia of that flavour makes this a little tastier than it sounds. On it’s own it’s not a bad flavour, but if you don’t like tomato sauce, you won’t be having a good time with these.
The texture is interesting here when compared to the pretzel. Whereas the pretzel is very hard but crisp, this is just crisp. I won’t consider this flaky, but it’s more crumbly and definitely very obviously cracker with its many layers and the way it falls apart as you bite into it. The salt on the outside also uses smaller granules, which is also a deviation from the larger crystals on the pretzel.
This is nothing revolutionary at this point, but back when pizza flavoured snacks were just starting to go mass market, this was probably one of the better offerings. This flavour is a staple of their line up and with good reason – it’s good a decent flavour and manages to hit that balance between boring and overly novel. I suspect it will be around for a long time to come, so if you want to see what people have enjoyed for a few decades at this point, go and get yourself a pouch.
