Jagariko Potato Sticks – Salmon Cream Cheese
Back in the time tunnel when I was but a poor student working at my first co-op work term, salmon cream cheese bagels were my best friend. Let me explain. During tax season, we had to work a lot of overtime to meet all the crazy deadlines. Part of that meant coming in on the weekends. Since working weekends without getting paid is enough to make anyone sad, the partners would at least bring in free food for us. It would always be bagels and a series of cream cheeses and fillings from a pretty well known deli. My go to was to grab a bagel and slather it in salmon cream cheese, and put a healthy serving of tuna salad in the middle. That would be my breakfast. And lunch. And afternoon snack. I ate a lot of cream cheese bagels, is what I’m getting at. While I don’t remember much from that time in my life (probably from repressing memories), I do remember those bagels fondly. It’s that same nostalgia that drew me to this product today.
These potato sticks look like if you took a fry, salted it and dehydrated it. They also smell like it to. The smell of fry oil is unmistakable. Is it weird that I subconsciously looked around for some ketchup? I honestly think these would go great with a sauce. They do look kind of dry…
Texturally, these are very crispy on the outside, and have the type of crunch you expect from a triple fried potato, where the inside is basically hollow but the outer shell is crunchy from all the frying. Because the inside is basically hollow, it snaps apart very quickly and fairly cleanly as well. I personally like my fries when they’re all crunchy, like those deep brown end pieces you found at the bottom of your fry container. Realistically the only difference is these don’t feel as greasy and don’t leave you feeling bloated or disgusting afterwards. At least I don’t think. It could also be a portion issue.
Flavour wise, I don’t really get the cheese or salmon flavour. I can see there are small pieces of what appear to be dehydrated cheese fried into the pieces, but the flavour is overwhelmingly fried potato, and something like salmon cream cheese is hard to simulate without salt, which these don’t seem to have much of. While I’m disappointed, I’m also not surprised. I was hoping for more, but this isn’t quite a deal breaker.
These things aren’t much to write home about from a flavour perspective, but they are great textually. It’s like some crunchy cross between fries and pretzel sticks, and it’s quite addictive. It’s probably a good thing these don’t come in a bigger container…It took me all of 5 minutes to finish my container. Because it didn’t feel particularly greasy, it almost felt like I ate nothing, and I’m already craving more.
I wouldn’t mind getting this again, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to get this particular flavour (or lack thereof). The texture is quite unique and not quite similar to what I’ve had so far. It’s like eating super crispy fries without the grease, or getting stains everywhere.
