Miss Vickie’s – Sweet Chili Sour Cream
Being from the Frigid North, we didn’t have many beloved brands that start out with humble beginnings on home soil. Most of the brands and snacks we had were imported to us from our neighbors in the south. A combination of warmer climates and bigger markets, I presume. Miss Vickie’s was one of the few Canadian brands at the time, and it was doing what very few other brands were at the time – making a consistent, relatively low cost kettle chip. At the time if you wanted a kettle chip, you had to pay quite a high premium. And even then, they weren’t as commonplace as they are now. Back then Miss Vickie’s basically only had two flavours, regular salted and salt and vinegar. It wasn’t until they were bought out by Frito Lay back in the early 90’s that they slowly began releasing new flavours.
Today’s flavour is one of those newer flavours. I’m not going to get into the whole argument of quality and what have you, I’m more interested in the now and present, because try as you might, there’s no way you can find a bag of chips from that era that hasn’t gone totally rancid. This is what you’re stuck with. I am however positive since the texture of the chips are really what I’m more about. The flavour, while still important, takes a backseat. For me at least.
These smell really vinegary for some reason. Thankfully they don’t taste that way. They have a very distinct fried potato that comes through right away, and the seasoning takes the drivers wheel shortly after. There’s a sweetness to the chips that remind me of a sweet chili paste, but has a nice sour cream flavour to round things out and take some of the edge off the heat. The spicy level is pretty mild, which is good because I’m not big on heat. The overall flavour has a slightly hot, sweetness to it that reminds me a lot of a sweet red pepper cream cheese or jalapeno cream cheese flavour. it’s quite easy to snack on. A little too easy.
The texture is pretty standard when it comes to kettle style chips. They aren’t as thick or hard as Hardbite, but crunchier than Kettle brand. These are sort of a happy medium I’d say. The chips themselves aren’t that thick, but they have that signature crunch from being fried kettle style. The combination of the oil and frying technique they use leads to a very distinct flavour and texture that is distinct even among the more common brands, which is interesting. Kettle tends to have flatter chips that are a bit thicker, while these tend to have lots of folds and really weird curling. The only downside to these fun shapes is a stray piece is almost inevitably going to hit the roof of your mouth in the wrong way.
Overall, these don’t stray too far from what I remember as Miss Vickie’s. At least not in a texture sort of way. The flavour is also a pretty nice pairing, and while it errs a bit on the mild side, that’s not always a bad thing. It gives the flavour of the chip shine through. It’s especially a bonus if you like that sort of, french fry flavour it has.
