Sunday Night Snacks
July 14, 2019 8:52 PM   Subscribe

 
I can confirm that the Paqui Haunted Ghost Pepper Chips are outrageously spicy. Two chips and I was rethinking my will to live. It was dangerously painful. it is coated in culinary napalm.
posted by mmascolino at 9:10 PM on July 14, 2019 [2 favorites]


We've gotten far, far away from the actual origins of spiciness in food — to prevent and mask spoilage, impart flavor and even keep rats away.

This is an often-repeated misunderstanding. Spices were always more dear than the things they augmented. Spice was desired because it was spice, not because it masked defects. Defects like rancidity cannot be masked. We might assume that supply chains in the past are like those of today but that is not so. You can be sure that the spoils of butchering were consumed rapidly and not after festering in what we might imagine to be a primitive refrigerator. Yes, salt was prized for its preservative power, but that is a rather different situation (preserving foods into a different season).

Indonesian cloves were found in the Mesopotamian city of Terqua dating to the 2nd millennium BC. This tells us a lot about what people valued and even more about what we don't know about the ancient times. I mean, how were those trading routes even possible? They clearly were, but that is all we know.

People have prized spices from the dawn of history and it was for their flavor (and their status-value) rather than to "mask spoilage." That does not even make sense.
posted by sjswitzer at 9:23 PM on July 14, 2019 [25 favorites]


Flamin’ Hot Funyuns are cruelly underrated here. I, too, have an unexamined bias against Funyuns, but the Flamin’ Hot ones basically taste like the patented Flamin’ Hot spice with a slightly more Fun texture.

Also, Simply Cheetos White Cheddar Jalapeno Puffs are unmentioned, and that’s just straight-up wrong.
posted by Going To Maine at 9:36 PM on July 14, 2019 [1 favorite]


I survived high school on a diet of Skittles and Andy Capp's Hot Fries. 5 Stars. Would recommend.
posted by downtohisturtles at 9:51 PM on July 14, 2019 [7 favorites]


It's more like popping blackheads on your friend's back after gym class:

Wait, what? This can’t be a thing, right? It’s a person with a dark, ugly, shameful predilection, given a platform to discuss hot snacks, trying slip in a little collaborative-pimple-popping-isn’t-so-bad sort of normalization, right?

Also, in a column vaguely about food?

Also, also, tom yum gun seasoned cashews, best spicy snack, or best snack overall?
posted by Ghidorah at 9:53 PM on July 14, 2019 [3 favorites]


If I was a youtuber I'd make a video of my South Asian parents creating their own rankings. I don't eat spicy food often now but I bet 12 year old me would easily best current me in chili eating contest. When I eat a ton of spicy food now my nose runs like a fountain and my stomach burns. 34 years old and life is already catching up to me!
posted by mundo at 9:58 PM on July 14, 2019 [2 favorites]


In my day we had to open a bag of regular Fritos and douse it with Cholula or Valentina and if we were lucky there was a slice of lime to squeeze in there too. Up hill. Both ways. In the snow.
posted by nestor_makhno at 10:02 PM on July 14, 2019 [12 favorites]


Hot Nuts aren't on their list? Granted, can be a little hard to find outsidea Mexican grocer. Also surprised at lack of Indian snacks.
posted by ch3ch2oh at 10:53 PM on July 14, 2019 [1 favorite]


I really like Zapp's Hotter [than] Hot Jalapeño chips. They're not just hot, they have a rounded flavour that makes them very moreish. I find that other chili-flavoured chips either swing for the taste of sweetened chili sauces, or their chili flavour is unpleasantly isolated, as if the manufacturers just added some capsaicin to their spice mix. Zapp's is unique in that the chili is plausible, it's a believeable chili flavour that entices and ultimately seduces you into finishing the bag.
posted by Joe in Australia at 11:01 PM on July 14, 2019


The Paquis are legit spicy. I had a bag on my desk at work last week, and my rate was about 1 chip every 5 minutes or so to keep a constant heat level without blowing my top. The review is right: they're not a great tasting snack, per se. And the heat level is such that I wouldn't be mowing through the bag to fill my stomach. The spice powder does get all around the mouth and back of my throat on occasion; way more than any flaming hot products do. So now I annoy my coworkers with occasional sputtering coughs. I'm buying another bag ASAP.
posted by onehalfjunco at 11:39 PM on July 14, 2019 [1 favorite]


I can confirm that the Paqui Haunted Ghost Pepper Chips are outrageously spicy. Two chips and I was rethinking my will to live. It was dangerously painful. it is coated in culinary napalm.

Came here to say exactly this; we picked up a bag for TTRPG snax & the rotation went "eat chip, spend full minute recovering from chip, 20 minutes later try eating chip again to see if any sort of tolerance has developed, chug Coca-Cola, cry"
posted by taquito sunrise at 11:39 PM on July 14, 2019 [1 favorite]


People have prized spices from the dawn of history and it was for their flavor (and their status-value) rather than to "mask spoilage." That does not even make sense.

Thank you sjswitzer! After reading the article I was coming in to say the same thing. It's up there on persistent bad food myths along with people brewed beer because they didn't have good water.
posted by Carillon at 11:52 PM on July 14, 2019 [2 favorites]


I eat wasabi peas when I need to clear my sinuses.

When I worked in a restaurant, I would love when some braggart would order wings "as hot as you can possibly make them." I took that dare seriously. Take straight Frank's Red Hot, add as much white, black, and cayenne pepper as the liquid will absorb, then it back down with the juice from a jar of banana peppers, then finish off with horseradish and chili powder. Never disappointed a customer.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 1:26 AM on July 15, 2019 [3 favorites]


Aw man, those wings sound good! I'm not a braggart -- I'd probably get the hiccups and be miserable. But they sound great in theory.

As someone who loves spicy food, but hates sour, acidic stuff, I think I'm more of a Flamin' Hot Cheetos guy. Takis give me heartburn. I want to try those spicy Doritos.

Those Paqui chips sound gross, though. I love spicy food, but it has to taste good, too. It sounds like those chips are more about pain than taste.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 2:21 AM on July 15, 2019 [1 favorite]


This is an often-repeated misunderstanding. Spices were always more dear than the things they augmented. Spice was desired because it was spice, not because it masked defects.

There is another facet to this, and it's often willfully ignored if not outright denied - at least in much of the post-Victorian/Protestant/whatever Western world, because: drugs are bad, mmmkay?

Many spices are also psychoactive drugs or have drug-like effects that go beyond flavor alone. Nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon and chocolate are ready examples of this. Peppers can have mind-bending effects if hot enough. Many spices have an MAOI side effect or can be potentiators for other ingredients or spices - which is why chocolate with chilis or peppers has been popular throughout the history of chocolate. Even garlic can be mildly mind altering. Eat enough garlic and your blood pressure drops and you can get really mellow.

A complex meal with a lot of spices can have a whole spectrum of psychoactive effects that go above and beyond being nutritious or tasty, and when you combine that with the diverse effects from the natural terpenes, aromatics, flavonoids and nutrients of many vegetables there's a compounding and synergistic effect going on that can make a body feel really good.

And there's nothing wrong with this. This is why the terpenes in cannabis or a hoppy beer will make you stoned and mellow, but you can also get some of those same terpenes from forest bathing or smelling flowers like lavender. Many herbal teas know this and rely on it - see chamomile!
posted by loquacious at 3:07 AM on July 15, 2019 [2 favorites]


When I worked in a restaurant, I would love when some braggart would order wings "as hot as you can possibly make them." I took that dare seriously. Take straight Frank's Red Hot,

Pfft, big deal.

add as much white, black, and cayenne pepper as the liquid will absorb,

Wait, hold up.

then it back down with the juice from a jar of banana peppers, then finish off with horseradish and chili powder.

Woah, calm down Satan!
posted by loquacious at 3:09 AM on July 15, 2019 [4 favorites]


Seriously incomplete. I mean -- where the hell are the Salsitas?
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:21 AM on July 15, 2019


The problem I have with most of the snacks on this list that I've tried is that they're sour as hell and barely hot. They're not using the sourness as a flavoring element but to heighten the sense of heat through acid burn, literally including citric acid on the ingredient list rather than citrus fruit flavor. That's most true of the Frito-Lays products on the list, and to a lesser extent the Takis (the Takis are way more acidic, but they also have more heat).

The Paquis chips are better than the rest in that I'm not having a Flavoring Experience© crammed down my throat. It tastes like actual honest-to-god dried-and-powdered ultra-hot pepper un-exacerbated by acids -- as someone whose spouse raises 7-pot joloka and carolina reaper peppers, I can speak first-hand to how several of these ultra-hot peppers taste. It's not only the ecstatic qualities of the endorphins that make ultra-hots appealing, the better ones also have surprisingly complex and strong flavors under the heat, and Paquis Ghost Pepper chips do a reasonable job of putting on a chip that complexity that a single real vegetable can have. Paquis' recipe is not a gram of capsaicin, distilled away from the flavor components of pepper, subsumed in a vat of artificial flavoring and citric acid. What's less nice about the Paquis chips is that they're absolutely brutal, also just like the real vegetable. Not as hot (and literally actually hazardous) as the real thing, but not a fun snack either, unless your sense of fun is more sadistic or masochistic than mine. I get a bag once maybe every other year, wonder why I did it, but the chips get gone eventually despite myself.
posted by ardgedee at 4:01 AM on July 15, 2019 [3 favorites]


Necessary companion audio: Hot Cheetos and Takis by Da Rich Kidzz.
posted by entropone at 5:36 AM on July 15, 2019 [2 favorites]


Takis Nitro: ...The aftertaste includes a slight medicinal pungency, like a freshly scoured hospital room.

Sounds...refreshing? The most spicy snack food I've tried was Hot Cheetoes and Takis (thanks for the earworm, me) and that was enjoyable for a bit and then just...kid of unpleasant.

My palate is that of a Norwegian bachelor farmer. I don't like my food to bite me back. I am a certified wimp and I am ok with it!
posted by Gray Duck at 6:09 AM on July 15, 2019 [4 favorites]


I have just learned that Flamin' Hot Funyuns exist and I need them in my mouth immediately.

I disagree with the Trader Joe's Ghost Pepper chip ranking. I think they taste decent, they're just criminally underspiced. Ghost Pepper implies very spicy, and they're not even Tabasco-level spicy.

My current favorite jalapeno chip is from Hal's. Super crunchy kettle chip, hot jalapeno, great flavor. Lots of other jalapeno chips taste okay but aren't very hot. These deliver on all fronts.
posted by rachaelfaith at 6:47 AM on July 15, 2019 [1 favorite]


"I have compiled every spicy snack known to mankind, save for the ones that I could not find, deem unworthy of inclusion, or both... True heat aficionados won't be satisfied but your cousin from Connecticut who calls La Croix "spicy water" should be able to handle them."

The writer comes on a little strong despite: more than half of the "everything known to mankind" list is from Frito-Lay; the rest is from North America AFAICT; there's nothing from (for example) Asian supermarkets, which are all over Los Angeles (and also in Connecticut)
posted by kurumi at 7:11 AM on July 15, 2019


#27
I am grumpy about the low ranking of Hot Fries. Worse flavor? How about BEST TEXTURE. I am also grumpy about how erratic their distribution seems to be. Not at Target, yes at the discount $5 and under store.

#28
But I agree about the TJ's Ghost Pepper chips. Where is the flavor? Is there someone who works at the chip manufacturer who is siphoning off vats of the flavoring and saving them to be bartered after the end of times?
posted by spamandkimchi at 8:30 AM on July 15, 2019 [1 favorite]


I'm glad Lucas Kwan Peterson got the LA Times food gig - but their being paywalled (and me being on a different coast in a different country means I'm not ever going to be one of their subscribers) means that 90% of his stuff I just won't get to read.
posted by thecjm at 9:02 AM on July 15, 2019 [1 favorite]


I love TJ's Ghost Pepper chips, but the flavor there is definitely weirdly variable from bag to bag. If you specifically want melt your face off spiciness, they aren't the chip for you. If, however, like me you want a sinus-clearing spicy chip that will not lead to sincere gastrointestinal regrets, they're pretty ideal.
posted by yasaman at 10:35 AM on July 15, 2019


If you specifically want melt your face off spiciness

DO NOT WANT
posted by tommasz at 10:43 AM on July 15, 2019 [1 favorite]


I'm obsessed with these Dang rice chips right now — they are so good and crunchy, but not shred-your-mouth crunchy — so I'm going to mention their Sriracha-flavored chips. (The coconut ones are also fantastic.) I recommend them!
posted by purpleclover at 12:25 PM on July 15, 2019


We like to make our own snack mix using the Paqui's ghost pepper chips and Barbara's original cheese puffs. The cheesiness helps heal the burn!
posted by topophilia at 12:48 PM on July 15, 2019


Also, Simply Cheetos White Cheddar Jalapeno Puffs are unmentioned, and that’s just straight-up wrong.

Also the Cheddar Jalapeño Crunchy Cheetos, but that might be because the deliciousness of their flavor is off the charts.
posted by capricorn at 1:05 PM on July 15, 2019


My spicy snack of choice has to be Sichuan spicy peanuts.

The good: the crunch and the numbing heat
The bad: having to fish the chili flakes out of the way
posted by The Outsider at 3:49 PM on July 15, 2019


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