Ketchup Chips

We know that the number one vegetable in the US is the French fry, and we eat them with ketchup. By the ton. Potatoes and ketchup are as American as you can get. So why don’t Americans eat ketchup-flavored potato chips? Maybe because they aren’t sold in American grocery stores. They are a well-known Canadian snack.

The best ketchup chips are made by Lay’s and sold only in Canada. They’re a masterpiece of MSG-laden zip and crunch. The beauty of Lay’s ketchup chips is that they don’t taste at all like actual ketchup: They taste like ketchup’s component parts, without the wet. You get the slap of vinegar and citric acid, the sweet, synapse-twerking pull of cooked tomatoes and sugar, the crunch of deep-fried potato starch, and all the lip-sticking salt of a Dead Sea skinny dip. Which is to say they’re snack-time solid gold. Most good Canadians can eat a quarter-kilogram bag in a go.

The A.V. Club tells us what they know about ketchup chips, their origin, and speculation on why Americans don’t demand them. Have you ever eaten ketchup chips? Do you like them?

(Image credit: Flickr user Jimmy Emerson, DVM)