Why are our flavours so unadventurous?

When looking for news on food, you can come across some weird things – especially when it comes to sweets and snacks.

I have to admit a guilty pleasure of mine is Pringles (onion and sour cream is my favourite) but the flavours available here must be so boring for people who have tried the flavours in Asian countries.

Would you try sweet mayo & cheese, hot & spicy seaweed, butter caramel or sweet potato with garlic & chilli paprika? Or how does squid soy sauce flavour appeal to you? It sounds much more alluring than salt & vinegar!

Now, the question is why don’t we have more adventurous flavours in supermarkets here?

In Japan, KitKat is available in over 50 flavours – yes, 50 flavours – not just milk, dark and white chocolate (I think I saw strawberry flavoured ones) but matcha, rum raisin, plum, banana (that I would love to try), sweet potato, lychee, wasabi (hot alert), cheesecake, apple pie, sake (never tried sake – Japanese alcohol), passion fruit, peach, mystery flavour (not sure I am brave enough to try that) and so many more.

I am tingling at the idea of being locked in a KitKat store in Japan with all these flavours – I am sure, not all would appeal to me but I would try any one of them.

Other rather unusual things I came across are sea urchin flavoured rice crackers, salty vanilla biscuit sticks, herb roasted chicken pretzels, rice crackers with cricket powder (yes, crickets).

Or what about crisps with flavours like consommé, sesame oil or avocado & cheese – do you think any of these inventions would be successful here in Ireland?

Imagine you work in the Development Department of Pringles and you are asked to come up with a new flavour (I think Walkers asked the public a few years ago for ideas and actually released some of the suggestions made). What would come to mind?

The other day, Mr T and I were sharing a lovely meat and cheese platter in the Rising Sons and were talking about crazy flavour combinations of crisps and as we were eating Cashel Blue cheese drizzled with honey (make sure to give this a try if you haven’t done so yet – it’s delicious) – so Mr T simply said why not have Pringles with blue cheese & honey?

Okay, so far I have never liked anything that was flavoured with blue cheese (although I am a huge fan of Dolce Latte and Crozier by Cashel), so the idea didn’t blow me away but let’s think of other ideas.

I have to admit that I love the classic flavour combinations (hence they are called classics) but I would try anything that contains cheese (how can you say no to cheese) or herbs.

I kind of draw the line at the squid soy sauce but wonder how the butter caramel Pringles would taste like. What is the weirdest flavour combination you have ever tried? And do you think squid soy sauce crisps would be a success here?