True story, I was walking with my wife to CVS to buy shampoo and walked past Trader Joe’s with no intention of going in until I saw this endcap display through the window and was drawn inside by a mystical force. Once I entered, I made my first of several disappointing realizations regarding Baconesque Popcorn.
Disappointing Realization #1: This Baconesque Popcorn is not Maple Baconesque Popcorn. The actual reason I made a beeline for htis Baconesque Popcorn is my current OBSESSION with the knowledge that the Kettle Brand Potato Chip company also makes a handful of flavored popcorns, and one of these flavored popcorns is maple bacon flavored. I want to try it so bad, and I can’t find it anywhere. Like everything in life, I can get it on Amazon, but when I last checked it was like $35 for 2 bags and even I’m not THAT impulsive:
The prices have come down since then but only in the sense that I can now get 6 bags, but I still have to spend $35. I’ll try almost anything, but I’m a fan of “trying” things in quantities smaller than would be sold at Costco, so I’m holding out hope for finding this stupid maple bacon popcorn in the store. Every single week I walk with childlike excitement to the popcorn/potato chip aisle at Wegmans hoping to find it and it is never there. Also every single week I see the Kettle Maple Bacon Potato Chips and for a second think it’s the maple bacon popcorn because of the word “kettle” and, yeah… Every. Single. Week.
So when I saw the words Bacon and Popcorn together on that Trader Joe’s chalkboard my first thought was “Eureka! I have found it! The Trader Joe’s knockoff of the maple bacon popcorn!!!!” which leads me to…
Disappointing Realization #2: This Baconesque Popcorn is actually Baconesque White Cheddar Popcorn. Not only is there no maple, no kettleness, etc, there IS white cheddarness. I am not a huge fan of White Cheddar popcorn, so this was a major bummer.
BUT, I bought the stuff anyways! Because who walks into a Trader Joe’s and walks out empty handed? (Just kidding we bought like 500 other things) I have now tasted it, and the final verdict takes the form of….
Disappointing Realization #3: This Baconesque Popcorn is not very good.
This crap tastes like Smartfood tossed in liquid smoke. It is also SO SALTY. I love salt and it is too salty for me. Be advised.
Also, fair warning, if you have the unseemly and, lets admit it, unavoidable habit of wiping your hands on various items of clothing whilst eating cheesy powdered snack foods, you WILL come away from your Baconesque Popcorn nosh session smelling like you just got back from a week of camping / pig smoking / fighting brush fires. I ate this stuff watching TV on the couch in my PJs and had to change my t-shirt before bed because the smoke smell was so distracting and gross. When I say “so distracting and gross” I mean both in its inherent smokiness and also in my own personal realization of just how much I had wiped my hand on my shirt without realizing it. You know when your dentist gives you those little tablets to chew on that stain your plaque red to identify your brushing “problem areas” and you chew them and smile in the mirror and you look like a cannibal clown and are totally mortified? Yeah, this is the popcorn equivalent of that. Who needs that kind of jarring reality check from their snacks? I’d rather go about my life in ignorance: with blind faith that the next weird thing I buy will be delicious, blissfully unaware of the various food residues on my clothing, and always hopeful that there will be bags of maple bacon popcorn stacked floor-to-ceiling just around the corner…