My unpopular opinion is that I don't think there is anything more dull and uninteresting than a plain potato chip. If you were to ask me about the music of Coldplay, I would simply refer you to a bag of plain Lay's potato chips.
They're that level of bland. So, you can certainly see why I get so excited when Lay's rolls out the next batch of new flavors for America to vote on. I'm all about new and exciting things, and Lays has a solid track record for introducing some pretty great flavors. Except for mango salsa flavored chips. Those are an absolute abomination.
Anyway, I have some ideas that I need to write down before they leave me. Just imagine the flavor possibilities with me...
Thanksgiving Dinner
Hear me out: a seasonal flavor of Lay's potato chips hitting the shelves every October through December, like the Starbucks pumpkin spice latte except not gross or overpriced. Rather than having one flavor on every chip, the Thanksgiving Dinner flavor would feature a variety of flavored chips in the bag to represent all things Thanksgiving: turkey, gravy, sweet potato casserole, Grandpa's passively racist comments, aunts and uncles asking when you'll get a real job and stuffing. It'll be a full Thanksgiving dinner in every bag. Who even needs to cook anymore? Just break out the bag of Lay's potato chips and watch the Lions lose a football game. Ah. The holidays.
Sports Venue Nachos
Go to an MLB baseball game, an NFL football game, an NHL hockey game, your 4-year-old nephew's tee-ball game or your girlfriend's gymnastics competition ... at any concessions stand, any time of year, anywhere in the country, if you're at a sports venue and you order nachos, you know what you're going to get.
You're going to get a clear plastic box with a handful of round corn tortilla chips with some canned nacho cheese drizzled over the top, along with another compartment filled with cheese for your dipping convenience. You'll pay $4.50 and they'll say, "Do you want jalapenos?" and you'll say, "What do I look like, someone who has never been to a sporting event before? Yes, I want jalapenos."
Then you'll return to your seat to find that the once piping hot nacho cheese sauce has formed a lukewarm, wrinkly, coagulated skin coating the top layer of chips, and the ones on the bottom have become so saturated with cheese that they are floppy and mushy like little pieces of delicious wet cardboard. There is nothing better.
Yeah, wouldn't it be cool if Lay's captured that experience in a potato chip?
Chicken Ramen
If Lay's ever chose to go with chicken ramen flavored potato chips, they would have a tall task ahead of them. You may be thinking, "Wouldn't that just be a chicken flavored potato chip?" I think not. There is chicken flavor, and then there is chicken ramen flavor.
Not only would the chip have to capture the flavor; it would have to capture the experience of eating a bowl of ramen noodles, including the flavor, the "I should probably not eat another package of these today" and the "What do you mean I just ate 1.5 grams of pure sodium?" College nostalgia would sell these chips.
Not to mention the fact that eating a bag of potato chips is leaps and bounds healthier than eating ramen noodles. Not by much, but it would be the lesser of two evils.
