Not Quite Product of the Week: Lay's Spicy Curry Potato Chips

Since I believe in being willing to try anything once, with the exception of incest and folk dancing, I picked up a bag of Lay's new "ethnic" potato chips, "Spicy Curry."

As you might expect, the most common adjective used by people who have tried it is "interesting."

Now, I am a huge lover of south asian and east asian cuisine. I have had the good fortune to both work and be friends with many people with ties to those parts of the world, and I have been blessed with the opportunity to gorge dine on home-cooked meals from many traditions. Really, these chips have the same relationship to a good curry, as "hot wings" flavored chips have to real chicken wings.

But come on, this is junk food, what do you expect? I enjoyed them with the same semi-guilty pleasure reserved for anything with this much salt and fat, but I am not convinced that I would buy another bag.

When I was Googling for a picture of the bag, I came across a blog called Sepia Mutiny, devoted to cross-cultural issues, and there was some good commentary by people of South Asian descent that I find myself siding with: that contrary to Lay's claim to be targeting the ethnic market in Canada and the US, this flavor is aimed at thrill-seeking* white North Americans who are willing to try something other than Sour Cream & Onion.

I think it could be a good marketing strategy for a 'global outlook'. In the world of 'lexus and the olive tree' indian snacks so far have been a part of the 'indian community' (whether the people constituting that community have been to India is questionable!). But when you get a non-indian taste a traditional indian snack, you get to hear: interesting taste, maybe a bit spicy. Now by introducing the good old 'chips for brain' to the Indian flavours (amongst the other exotic flavours), maybe it is bringing the west to a more general sensitization to these flavours. So, now in 2020 when you offer a traditional indian snack, the reponse might change to: wow tastes just like the chips, but........

*I'm using "thrill-seeking" in the loosest sense of the word, of course.

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