It's strange to me how often horseradish is highlighted in snack foods (yes, fake sushi counts) when it is rarely, if ever, seen in a supermarket. Go ahead, look for it! Unless you're at a specialty market or the Holy Grail that is Whole Foods, you're unlikely to run across this root cousin of mustard and cabbage.
And yet there it is, hiding in cheese (throwback time!), in "wasabi," and now, in potato chips.
HERR's Kettle Cooked Cheddar Horseradish Flavored Chips (emphasis mine, and for good reason)
Root-flavored roots, and yet they don't taste like dirt! Nor, ironically, do they taste like their namesake: Cheddar. In fact, they don't taste like much except the heated revenge of a vegetable that has been hiding in the shadows for far too long and feels it's time to shine.
Brightly.
Very brightly.
Kick-you-in-the-face brightly.
Because the moment this salty concoction hits your tongue, your mouth fills up with lava, and not the pleasant kind (though some passersby wholeheartedly disagreed, interestingly enough). It's an explosion of spicy and it does not fade for some time. "Maybe I just got a bad chip," you think to yourself, holding on to hope. And then you eat another and your hopes evaporate. Revenge of the horseradish.
Except there's no horseradish. There are "spices," which is real specific, HERR's, thanks a lot. What, are you afraid we're going to try to replicate these at home, ruining your enterprise of too-ambitious potato chip flavors? Because we're not. And even if we did, we'd attempt to stay true to our roots and use real horseradish, like the true foodies we are.
Rating: 3. Save your calories unless you enjoy being engulfed in flames.
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