TRADER JOE’S CORNBREAD CRISPS REVIEW and GtotheT SNAK ATTAK RECIPE CORNER
CORNBREAD CRISPS: IT’S A HIT
Am I naïve in thinking Pita Chips were once pitas? I don’t think so. Snacks that claim bagel, pita, bread (bruschetta), and now cornbread as antecedent interest me in this regard. Certainly, the dough in Cookie Dough Ice Cream is not cookie dough. I’ve long wanted to fish it out and bake it just for kix. Now, due to their smoothness and well-delineated edges, I’d decided TRADER JOE’S CORNBREAD CRISPS (crisps, schmisps—c’mon, they’re CHIPS) couldn’t have once upon a time been actual cornbread cut into crispchips. TJ’s website claims otherwise: “we first make cornbread…” Hmmm, seyz Doubting Gilmore, raising an eyebrow, which, if she can’t do in life, she sees no reason not to do on the page.
My snack reviews have been so gd qualified and swathed in hazy socio-econo-politico analysis it’s nice to be able to bypass all that and say I was solidly yummed (how do we feel about that as a verb?). Sure, Lady Justice obliges me to point CORNBREAD CRISPS did have an advantage over other fuds containing nothing that grosses me out or requires endurance (the powder-patina snacks can fell even the most determined eater). I’ll eat corn where ‘ere I can find it, cob, chip, bread, muffin, salsa, johnnycake, taco, I’m in. And whether I like it or not some might point out considering corn syrup’s sinister omnipresence.
Let’s start by affirming that calling them CORNBREAD CRISPS in the theory-vs-practice snack continuum is a rational act. They do taste like cornbread. The cappuccino in the cappuccino chips? Only if you are humoring a potato chip engineer at Lay’s who is having a bad day. The CRISPS are golden and diamond-shaped, a shape underutilized in the snack macrocosm, IMHO. Should it be of interest to you, they make more sound bumping around each other than say potato chips, something if you really forced it, you might say was almost a plink. The color is evocative and homey, and I imagine out there in the world, vats of dye with labels like “Cornbread, no. 47, light golden, 350-degree bake., Cornbread, no. 48, deep golden, 425-degree bake.” Not that TJ’s would ever stoop to such shenanigans.
In the crispy v. crunchy thunder dome, I find crispy can veer towards an unpleasant rasping, sandy texture I’m not nuts for, but these fought gracefully in the middle ground between the two. And they gave as good as they got. It’s not that they bit back exactly, they just held up their end of the process. And the cornbreadfulness was compelling enough that I wanted an…unrestricted view, if you will, of the taste, and had no urge to obscure by way of onion dip, chili, etc. Someone, not me, would call them light and airy. I’m not sure when this started or for what reason but when things are described as “light and airy,” I often as not imagine a bewigged Versailles courtier silhouetted in brilliant sun, framed by French (ha!) doors, eating something indinguishalbe except to be describable as light and airy. Why. Why, why, why. All those Voltaire quotes I wish I could remember?
Anyway, that I a) finished AND b) would buy again is at present the strongest LIVE AT THE GILMORE endorsement there is. I’ve a refrigerator littered with rubberbanded bags of novelty chips/crackers/etc. 90-95% uneaten (I started keeping my snacks in the fridge after the attrition of those sogged to ruin by humidity became too painful to bear). I never did much more than start the Everything Bagel Potato Chips and Bruschetta Lentil Chips, and the Gingerbread Tortilla chips still linger to this day. Sigh. They’d have gone the way of the garbage/recycling bag long ago if I didn’t hate to waste food.
We have cornbread, we have pasta chips and now, let us make the revolutionary leap to biscuit chips. As you see, I am not just a mindful mindless consumer, I am DIY journeywomayn snack craftsperson. I suspect Sandra Lee may have beaten me to the punch here BUT I DON’T CARE. Great semi-homemade minds think alike.
GtotheT SNAK ATTACK RECIPE CORNER
- Whatever is on sale package biscuit dough
- Spray vegetable stuff
- Butter or butter equivalent
- Ladder
- Cookie sheet
- Scissors?
Like a mouse leaping from its cage, my liberated pillow of dough plopped from its tube into my awaiting hands. Such a nice squish. I separated biscuits (I suppose there’s some sort of puppies/birth sac analogy, but I don’t want to be needlessly upsetting). Each individual biscuit I peeled apart lengthwise into fourths by way of much-ballyhooed layers. I cut these into triangles with an eye to underscore this chip-ness of the enterprise, which was a little hard with the roundness (where’s Euclid when you need ‘im?). I wanted my guinea pigs friends to know this was a chip they were holding not some willy-nilly fragment. I put them on parchment which has magical non-stick properties really not necessary in this case but my pessimism prevailed. I sprayed the parchment with spray grease. I misted the tops (fronts?) of the triangles. Oven: 425 degrees. Every 5 min. or so I pulled ‘em around gave ‘em shake.
Now, cooking shows don’t usually mention ladders BUT may I say, as I don’t have a ladder, and as I dread that the alarm which I can’t reach will scream for so long while I try to find a way to shut it up my neighbors might kill me, I didn’t use as much butter as early on in the process as I liked for fear of scorching and smoking. More butter might mitigate that weird flour taste that is in everything Pillsbury, etc. So. Around 15 minutes I lightly anointed them with butter. I chose not to salt as I thought it would overwhelm the butter and they’re plenty salty. I kept vigil on ‘em, about 20 min total (?) cooked to deep golden brown just shy of like, what, the color of an ancient Syrian palimpsest? The Constitution? No centimeter left uncooked. Decidedly crunchy. Not the second coming, but people seemed to like ‘em.
BONUS: TRIPLE PEANUT BUTTER THREAT OPEN-FACED SANDWICH
- Peanut butter powder
- Peanut butter
- Peanuts
- Toast (suggest wheat to serve as ballast to peanuttyness)
I’ve noticed this inclination of mine to want to take as many varieties of the same thing as is possible to see how many gradations of a flavor can be included and how much (if at all) this magnification reveals the essential flavor of what is being consumed. This had manifested in chocolate desserts with nods to milk, medium, dark and uber dark chocolate (different textures when possible). I’ve eaten potato soup with potato chips and leftover mashed potatoes. I’ve long had an (as of yet unfulfilled) ambition of making an Xtreme apple OR cherry pie made up of their respective fresh, dried, and canned (the premade filling) versions.
As a peanut butter fiend, this sandwich was kind of a happy dare to search for the most peanut buttery thing conceivable. There IS (it just occurred to me to look) peanut butter bread—can you imagine? NEXT LEVEL SHITE. Well, maybe that will come down the pike someday. Meantime, seize toast. Slather with goodly portion of peanut butter. Open up peanut butter power, and wonder if Jack Lalane would have dug it. Sprinkle on your sandwich with conviction. Come now, there you go. Don’t be shy. Plenty. To the edges. Squish in a goodly number of individual peanuts with regular intervals. Chew. Consider. Chew. Consider. And…you’re done. One more experience in your life. Who are you now? A TRIPLE PEANUT BUTTER THREAT OPEN FACED SANDWICH EATER, that’s who.