I decided to try two diet colas not popular enough to make it into vending machines.  Admittedly I have been a Tab (or TaB) addict since I was a teenager and people always ask me “WHERE did you get that?  I didn’t even know they still made Tab!”  But it’s easy to find at major supermarkets (here in New England) like Stop & Shop, Shaw’s and Market Basket.  As for Diet Rite, if someone was holding a gun to my head right now I would not be able to remember where I got it.  All I know is it  was at some convenience mart in Framingham and knew I had to grab it when I saw it.

Diet Rite:
One of the first things I noticed just from the bottle was it’s light color.  I almost thought I grabbed an iced tea by accident.  I also noticed that there was very little fizz, if any, when I opened it and there were no bubbles on the side of the cup when I poured it.  It tasted a teeny bit carbonated when I tried it.  Ethan and I both noticed it was extremely sweet and chemicaly tasting,  like someone just dumped a bunch of Nutrasweet into water and barely colored it brown.

Tab:
Tab clearly had more bubbles and of course I will say nice things about it but even Ethan, who does not usually have an appreciation for Tab, said that it has more “body” and liked it better because it wasn’t as sickenly sweet as Diet Rite.  It’s also more cola tasting.  I could go on, I wish I could find  word for what makes Tab’s taste so awesome but maybe it’s just one of those things you have to experience.  I know most people that try it don’t like it but those who do really do.

Wrap up:
I will give Diet Rite a break and say something happened to it in the store to make it flat, but the overwhelmingly sweet “taste” was soapy and unenjoyable and I can’t imagine it any better with more bubbles in it.   Darling Tab was the clear winner (for the record I didn’t like Tab Clear) and I think the only runner up to it *might* be Diet Pepsi, which I may have to re-match in the future.

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Pringles totally had the market cornered on stackable deydrated-potato chips until Lays came out with Stax in 2003.  I never had Stax, I never see people eating Stax but I guess I don’t see people walking around with canisters of Pringles either.
Also, I’d like to note that when I went to my local grocery store to get some Stax, I couldn’t find them and asked the guy stocking the shelves in the snack section where they were and he told me “Those are discontinued…you can’t get them anymore.”   I was heartbroken, the one time I wanted to eat these and they were discontinued??  We ended up finding these randomly at a KMart in New Hampshire and I thought we hit the Stax jackpot, but since them I have seen them in some other places so I’m not sure if they’re discontinued or that guy just didn’t know what he was talking about.

Okay, first you get the flavor….

Pringles have a light, crisp, delicate body, that provides a lovely crunch. The salt-to-chip ratio is good and they have almost a buttery flavor.
Ethan described them as being the “essence of a chip”.

Stax:
Stacks were noticeably thicker and didn’t shatter as easily when bit as did the Pringles.  Ethan said these were more like a “real” chip.  The thickness is like 2, maybe 3 Pringles and the taste is somewhat bland.  The amount of salt did seem balanced for the chip though.

Wrap up:
While I can appreciate Lay’s effort, I think Pringles has the upper hand with it’s leaf-like thinness and I think because of that, it provides more satisfaction when crunching into one.  The Stax almost seemed too thick.  Instead of a nice crisp “crunch”,  Stax had a dull “crack” when biting into it, and no butter-like flavor.

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For this taste test I included three items:  HoHos, Yodels and Swiss Rolls.
HoHos are made by Hostess and I guess it’s been a while since I’ve eaten this stuff because I didn’t even notice when Hostess bought Drakes.  All Drake’s products now include “By Hostess” on the packaging.  Since I began buying food for this blog I’ve noticed a lot of things are now owned by someone else, even a past rival sometimes, and I’m convinced someday all snacks will be made by one company: Little Hershkellhostlayisco, Inc.  But anyway, on to the evaluation…

First up was HoHos:
Although this was crushed, I did appreciate the softness of the cake.  Ethan and I both found the creme to be nice and smooth while the cake was just okay.  The texture was good but it lacked any real chocolate flavor, even though it smelled very chocolaty.

Yodels:
The Yodel stood up to whatever smooshed the HoHo (they were in the same grocery bag from the store) and when we tasted it, we knew why.
The cake was pretty dry, we needed to drink plenty of water with this. The creme was a little dense, but has a decent flavor. Any enjoyment of the flavor was overshadowed by the dryness of the cake though.  The outer chocolate coating seemed almost plasticy too.

Swiss Roll:
                                  
Swiss Roll was the most crumbly of the three.  The outer coating of chocolate peels off easily, almost as soon as I picked it up (if not already detached when taken from the package).  The cake was very moist and soft with an actual chocolaty taste.  Both Ethan and I noted that this was sweeter than the other two and the ratio of creme-to-cake was perfect.  I think Ethan described it as “more balanced” than the others.  The creme has a nice light texture

Wrap up:
I was disappointed in the Yodel, I remembered liking them a lot when I was a kid.  The cake was dry and there was not a good creme-to-cake ratio. 
The middle of the road roll would be the HoHo.  It was much better than the Yodel but still seemed to lack the satisfaction one would expect consuming these calories.
Our top pick was the Swiss Roll. To me, Little Debbie usually knows what she’s doing. I’ve enjoyed her products through the years, and she does not disappoint with the Swiss Roll.  It’s crumbly but that’s because it’s so moist and delicate. The taste makes it the most worthy of the three.

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To make a long story short, Ethan and I found ourselves shamefully at Wal*Mart tonight.
I won’t get into how I disagree with their business practices but we just went and figured while looking for what we needed, it may be a great source for second rate snacks.

We got some good ones, but the most impressive product we found was Stauffer’s Whales.  Of course we were compelled to try them so they made it into the basket and after waiting 20 minutes in the check-out line, we brought them home to test.

First up…

Whales
These crackers were a little larger than Goldfish, (much like how real whales are bigger than real goldfish!) the first thing I noticed when I put one in my mouth was the nice salt-to-cracker ratio.  I like to just move the cracker around in my mouth and take in any cheddar flavor before chewing, and did get some flavor.  Ethan felt that although they didn’t really taste like cheddar, they were good.
I felt the flavor in general was pretty good but something about the texture seemed dense or stale or missing a certain crunch but Ethan thought the texture was fine, so maybe it was just  me.

Goldfish
Next was our childhood classic, Goldfish.  These actually seemed pale in flavor after the Whales.  We agreed they were lacking any real cheddar flavor and actually tasted more like a saltine.  Even the salt didn’t seem as good on these.  It’s saving grace was the texture which was a little more crunchy and didn’t seem as mushy after chewing.

Wrap up:
It was a big surprise that we found ourselves enjoying the Whales more than the Goldfish, BUT you *might* say they cheated, since they do include MSG in their ingredient list and Goldfish doesn’t.

Since we haven’t seen these before tonight I’m not sure many other people have but I’ll ask anyway.

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One of the great classic debates.  Are you a Hydrox or Oreo loyalist?  I haven’t eaten either of these in eons and by eons I mean the early 80’s.  My dad was annoyingly quasi-kosher and didn’t allow us to eat Nabisco products so we were limited to Sunshine and Drakes- which isn’t a bad thing, but we only had Hydrox in the house – not that we even had them that much, and Oreos were a treat to be indulged in the safety of friends’ houses.
So earlier this month, when I got the idea for this blog, I thought of this pair of creme-filled cookie facing off, only to learn Hydrox had been discontinued(!).  The timing just happened to be right though.  Kraft (who now owns Sunshine) was planning on bringing back Hydrox this month for a limited time for their 100th anniversary.  Yes, I never knew Hydrox came before Oreos.  I always assumed that because we were only allowed Hydrox growing up that they (like everything else we had) must have been the rip-off.  You learn something new everyday!

Anyway, on to the taste test…

First up was Hydrox
For this tasting I had Ethan and I tried them at home and I then brought the rest in to work to get the opinion of my co-workers in a group tasting.
The work crew found Hydrox to twist off nicely, leaving one cookie side with complete creme intact, which some found as a plus.
The cookie has a nice crunch and good chocolate flavor.  One taster commented she didn’t like the creme but the majority thought it was ok.  Also noted that when dunked in milk, Hydrox crumbled but this was mentioned as good thing.

Oreo
The group agreed that Oero was “smoother” when biting into.  The cookie was a bit softer and didn’t crumble as much in milk.  Also we found we could not get it to twist off with the creme on one side as easily as it’s Hydrox counterpart.
The group also agreed there was a nice creme-to-cookie ratio.  Some found the Oreo cookie to be too strong in chocolate flavor and a bit overwhelming.

Wrap-up:
These are both very similar,  but each had qualities that the group felt made them their own.  In general they felt Hydrox had a lesser quality creme but a higher quality cookie.  Oreo had clearer brand loyalty and one person had to be convinced to try a Hydrox but was pleasantly surprised it wasn’t terrible.  Also, I’d like to add that with the resurrection of Hydrox, they have tweaked the recipe to leave out trans-fats. So in Hydrox’s defense to people not liking the creme as much, at least they are being a little more health-conscious.  Although that’s not really a prioity when eating any of this stuff anyway.

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