Frito Lay™ has conquered the worldwide market on potato chips. I got off the plane in Toronto and was greeted by Salt & Vinegar and Original. Kinda boring, Canada. Especially after Forest Mushroom and Thai Sweet Chile.
My obsession with potato chips started last summer at camp. After 3 mess hall meals of bread and potatoes,, Laima, Vitas, and I would have a nightly snack of chips with beer or champagne (depending on the occasion). In Lithuania, the favorites are Spring Onion, Fromage, Dill, and Tomato. Vitas talked our ear off about the existence of mushroom flavored chips, but despite a month of searching, we never found them. This summer though, they jumped off the shelf at me the first time I set foot in a grocery store. The 54 clerks we asked for them last summer must have called up Frito Lay and told them a bunch of crazy foreigners wanted Mushroom chips. Oh, and this summer, we also tried Chicken. Yuck.
In Latvia, they keep the Spring Onion, Fromage, and Tomato, and add Cheese to the mix, which seems a little overkill with the Fromage, but I guess they needed to use that Yellow #5 somewhere.
Germany was pretty boring with its Lays, Cheese & Onion, and Paprika (double yuck!), but Amsterdam brought some surprises. Barbeque Ham? Bolognese? Thai Sweet Chile? Hmmm…..Too bad I didn’t get enough Amsterdam to try any of them.
I will never get over the fact that in some countries, you can't get clean drinking water, or it's more expensive than beer, but you can always find Coca-Cola™ and Lays™ potato chips. I guess if I ever want to take over the world, the trick is high fructose corn-syrup and trans fats.
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I must have missed this post last year... but I always tell people that my safety net travel diet boils down to Coke and Pringles (Sour Cream 'n' Onion, please). I am pretty sure that in every country I have been in, if I couldn't find suitable food, I knew I could find some little mini-mart or kiosk with Pringles and Coke :P I was so excited while in Beijing to see all the interesting varieties of Lays they had. In rural Korea it's harder to find Lays because of the local competitor's similar flavors and packaging, but if the shop is large enough, Pringles will be on the shelf. Coke and Pepsi also show up (as well as Fanta- Coke's dirty little Nazi secret).
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