Snack Review: Wheat Thins Toasted Chips

The folks at Nabisco/Kraft are mighty crafty. And I don’t mean cunning or guileful, but rather smart. At the introduction of their new toasted chip line, they’ve jumped on the eco-friendly “green” bandwagon with a gymnastic and graceful flourish.

One bag features a wispy sepiatone photo of a mountainside, while the other shows a little girl in a sun dress smiling radiantly down at healthy stalks of wheat. If their product were subpar I’d chide them for a blatant attempt at riding the conservation tide. But these snacks are lip-smacking good! Go, Nabisco/Kraft, go!

Still, I wonder why they refer to them as chips when they sure seem like crackers to me.

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Snack Review: Somebody’s Mother’s Chocolate Sauce

If chocolate sauce ever came up in conversation, I would usually think of Hershey or Nestle. That seems like the distant, misty past to me now.

You see, that was before I met Somebody’s Mother - her sauce, specifically.

Holy Willy Wonka. Where to begin.

A spoonful straight out of the jar at room temperature tasted like pudding, fudge, and pie filling all at once - a top-shelf, gourmet quality, rich and velvety confection. Not surprising since the ingredients are simple and fresh, with no preservatives: heavy cream, sugar, butter, unsweetened chocolate. The texture was akin to very thick cake frosting, but without the nerve-jarring artificial sweeteners.

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Snack Interview: Carolyn Wyman, Snack Food Columnist

The staff at Snackerrific appreciates irreverent humor, interesting stories, and above all, honesty when it comes to food and snack reviews. That’s why we’re pleased to welcome Carolyn Wyman, syndicated columnist and author of five food books, including Jell-O: A Biography; Better Than Homemade: Amazing Foods That Changed The Way We Eat; Spam: A Biography; and the forthcoming The Great Philly Cheesesteak Book. Her “Supermarket Sampler” column appears in over 100 newspapers nationwide, and she’s been published in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Boston Globe. She spoke with us from her home in Philadelphia.

SN: Besides being a talented and prolific writer, you’re also a self-proclaimed “junk-food fanatic.” How did you meld the two: writing and junk food? Did this evolve or did you set out to write about food from the beginning?

CW: Write about what you know, is a famous and wise piece of writerly advice which I have followed: I grew up the daughter of a newspaper editor (my dad) and a processed food enthusiast (my mom). My mom worked full-time (at a time when a lot of women didn’t) and relied on processed foods to feed her family. More than relied, she loved them. I think she realized she didn’t either have the time or interest or skill to cook as good as Pepperidge Farm or Stouffer’s.

Most people don’t tell you the truth but very few people are willing to admit it. But she was, lucky for me not just personally but professionally because I grew up with an intimate knowledge of how all these processed foods work, how they smell and taste. So when Special K comes out with a new Italian herb cracker like they just did, I can say with some authority, “These are like Keebler’s old Pizza Chips.” Because I ate Keebler Pizza Chips and just about every other processed food that has come down the pike since I was a tot.

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Snack Review: Doctor Kracker Organic Flatbread Crackers

“Peace, love and crackers.”

So ends the catchy Doctor Kracker jingle performed by Tres Lunas. Honestly, these organic, whole wheat flatbread crackers have to be the hippest snacks around. I mean, Jad Fair (singer/guitarist/co-founder of the legendary punk rock band Half Japanese, collaborator for Yo La Tengo, Teenage Fanclub and Daniel Johnston) created a silly animated short for these amazing crackers!

Yes, these are the snacks all the cool kids in the neighborhood snarf on while watching ThunderCats: “But Lion-O, these crackers are too crunchy! Snarf! Snarf!” (Okay, maybe not the really cool kids.)

Despite the throwback look (think Smith Bros. cough drops - specifically the bearded bro’), the playful website and the whimsical package labels (”Gaze with awe upon the Seedlander”), the good Doctor K. is not fooling around. These are seriously tasty and nutritious snacks with a rich German history, from a region where flatbreads are a staple in the best bakeries. From his grandfather’s bakery in 1997, company founder Dr. Klaus Karg sought to meld the simple and austere Swedish flatbreads with the more flavorful specialty breads. He succeeded years later and sold his crackers under the company name Dr. Karg.

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Snack Review: Little Debbie 100 Calorie Snacks

I’ve been crazy about Little Debbie since I was Little Jimmy. I remember fervently wishing that the cute cowgirl on the snack cake package lived nearby so we could play together, not knowing Debbie was easily twice my age at the time. Like all good stories, there’s a narrative arc: Now Little Debbie is following ME! On Twitter! (LittleDebbie is trying to make you salivate like a Great Dane who missed lunch. about 5 minutes ago from web)

What’s more, she sent me a huge box of cute li’l snacks! For pre-packaged, mass-produced cakes and sweet treats, you can’t find much better than this.

The trick to wise snacking is sensible portions in moderation. Little Debbie’s 100 Calorie Snacks help us do just that, or at least suggest it; the rest is up to us. These snacks have about the same fat and sugar content as their regular items, but the serving sizes are anywhere from 50-60% smaller. In short, you’re eating the same sweet and fatty food, just less of it. At least it’s a start.

Although I’m not a body builder like the narrator’s father and brothers in Jonathan Evison’s excellent first novel, All About Lulu, I swear I thought my arms were super bulked when I grabbed a Yellow Cake (with “butter creme” icing) and a Triple Fudge Brownie.

Man, I’m massive!

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