This product is a fraud. A sham. A deception. It is lying to you.
If I had sampled these chips without being told the name on the bag, and then been asked to guess what food item(s) the seasoning was supposed to be imitating, "turkey and stuffing" would not have been among my first ten guesses. Nothing about them triggers my memory of turkey and stuffing.
The underlying chips are fine. But the seasoning is, well, just kind of weird. It doesn't even feel like it's trying to be anything in particular--as if the seasonings were just randomly chosen from the shelf and thrown in blindly. This is in stark contrast to the way that TJ's Ghost Pepper chips or South African chips have a sense of unity of intent to their seasoning blends. Heck, even the far less complex salt and vinegar chips and the salt and pepper ridge-cut chips succeed better at being a clear, distinct, purposeful thing. The "turkey and stuffing" seasoning, by contrast, is just puzzling to my tongue. From the title, I know what it's supposed to be, but it's not that--nor anything else, either.
I will, however, give credit to Trader Joe's for ambition. Trying to recreate turkey and stuffing in a potato chip is just ridiculously audacious, and I love them for it. It's the kind of product creativity that TJ's cranks out on an impressively regular basis, while other grocery stores add a 47th brand of chocolate ice cream to the freezer and call it a day.
TJ's swung for the fences with this one, like Casey at his third pitch: "And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow!" But Trader Joe's, like the sturdy batsman, has struck out.
Other opinions
This is another item on which my e-friend and fellow TJ's blogger Susan (and her husband/co-blogger David) disagree completely. For a radically different perspective, see their review here.
EDIT: Now the nice (but slightly crazy) folks at the "What's Good at Trader Joe's" blog have weighed in, assigning this item a perfect score of 10/10. So for another radically different opinion from mine, see here.
Will I buy it again?
No.
Nina's View
I ate exactly ONE of these (after ascertaining that they did not, in fact, have any actually turkey content).
ONE potato chip. Out of a full bag. ONE.
That should tell you everything you need to know about this product.
Another point of view:
ReplyDeleteAmbition without execution is worthless. I don't see why TJ's should get credit for ambition, absent execution. I think they are counting on their customers to bite (pun recognized) on novelty, whether the novelty works or not.