Trader Joe's Popcorn In A Pickle

Trader Joe's rolls out new products all the time. Most of these are not particularly exciting. Over the last couple of weeks, for example, there has been a new cheese, a blend of olive oil and lemon juice, an organic version of a previously available non-organic bagged salad, a medley of fresh fruit chunks, and two new varieties of seed blends. Ho-hum. I'm sure they all have their place, but nobody spots the 126th kind of cheese on the shelf and fires up his or her social media outlets to gush over the find. (You can see all the things in the "What's New" section of TJ's web site.)

Once in a while, though, a TJ's product comes along that is so crazy that people seeing it in the stores immediately whip out their phones, and send pictures of it to Twitter and Facebook, with comments about how they can't wait to try it. I monitor the #TraderJoes hashtag on Twitter and participate in a Facebook group of TJ's fans, which together operate as my own personal Distant Early Warning Line for new products.

And boy oh boy did that DEW line light up starting on August 2 when, apparently, the first TJ's outlets started stocking this pickle-flavored popcorn. I had never heard of it, and Google turned up absolutely nothing about it anywhere on the web, not even in the "What's New" section of TJ's own web site. (For some reason, it's still not there.) I went to my local store in Asheville that same day, hoping to be one of the first to try it, only to be bitterly disappointed: not only did they not have it, they had never heard of it, and it wasn't even listed in their computer as an item that they could order. Over the next ten days, I saw dozens of tweets from people gushing about it. These came from Connecticut, New York, Minnesota, D.C., Washington, Oregon, California, and Arizona--everywhere, it seemed, except North Carolina. And repeated trips to my store kept turning up no pickle-flavored popcorn anywhere. I felt sure that my state was being left out of the rollout specifically to punish me, probably for too many negative reviews of TJ's products.

But it's finally here, and Nina and I tried it Wednesday night. It's a freaky experience. It plays tricks with your brain and the expectations you have built up over a lifetime of dealing with food. You snip open a bag of popcorn, and immediately get a strong scent of ... NOT popcorn, but pickles. Then you pop a few kernels in your mouth, and you have the expected texture of popcorn, but all the flavor of a pickle.

Mind you, this is not some "popcorn with a hint of pickle." No. It's full-bore dill pickle. Your brain is all, "WTF, dude? I'm tasting pickle, but chewing on popcorn. Isn't that one of the classic signs of having a stroke or something?" It's a seriously confusing sensory rush, what with the signals crossing and all.

And I suppose that that's reason enough to buy and eat it once--for the sheer novelty of it. Like the Key Lime Tea Cookies a few days ago, or the Fireworks chocolate bar before that, it's a sensory experience sufficiently unlike any other available from a grocery store that you should probably give it a whirl.

But for long-term, repeat snacking? I don't think so. I loves me a good dill pickle, but, dammit, I want the crunch and the wetness to go along with the flavor. Conversely, when I eat popcorn, I want it to at least retain some meaningful flavor of popcorn--which this doesn't, because of how overpowering the dill is. It thwarts what I'm wanting from both possible snack choices simultaneously.

The stuff isn't bad. But it's never going to make me want more and more of it, the way that, for example, the TJ's Popcorn with Herbs and Spices does. (No link; review still pending.)

Will I buy it again? 

No. I'm delighted to have another unusual but not unpleasant sensory experience added to my lifetime experience, but I feel no eagerness to repeat it.

Nina's View

Bob has this right. I feel only journalistically obligated to report that my burps were dill-flavored for hours after eating this snack. 

You're welcome.