Junk Food Nation, October is here!!! And October is, by far, one of my favorite months of the year. Contends for the one seed. The reasons why are so very simple:

1) The Fall is my favorite season, and fully manifests in October. The humidity of summer is gone, and the leaves start to change. There’s some good sunlight still, and usually a nice breeze.  The evenings are filled with a little chill, and the mornings are brisk.  It’s the only season on the East Coast where you can pull off a long sleeve sweater AND sandals.  You can drink beer in the morning and its normal (wait, what?) Growing up with bonfires and hot cider, I still look forward to the Fall.

More after the jump.  Today’s junk food: Orville Redenbacher’s Salt & Vinegar Gourmet Popping Corn!

The Money Shot

Orville Redenbacher “gourmet popping corn” has been around since 1965 and is America’s #1 selling popcorn. Popcorn used to scare me as a kid – I remember popping a Jiffy Pop in those weird foil pan things on a hot stove.  That weird foil lid would inflate into a big ball until it burst over with popcorn. Scared the piss out of me.

Anyways, I’ve seen and eaten a lot of microwave popcorn in my day, and usually the variations are different levels of butter: extra butter, light butter, 50% butter, no butter, gobs of butter.  And once in a while you’ll have microwave kettle corn.  But salt & vinegar?? This is the first time I’d seen ANYTHING like this.

What up, Orville

By the way, do you know how Orville Redenbacher passed? He was found in a bathtub with a whirlpool in his condominium, where he drowned after a heart attack. 🙁 🙁  Yikes.

Simple = more

Love the imagery here… salt, malt vinegar, and popcorn. Very simple.

Five bags though, with five individual seasoning pouches? What a weird number…to me, at least.  Not a half-dozen, not a full-dozen, but five? I’m trying to think of any time something is packaged in an odd number.

I'm good enough, I'm smart enough...

I AM IN CONTROL! I CAN CREATE THE FLAVOR I CRAVE! Sorry, got caught up in the affirmations.

Contains...milk?

The ingredient list is as expected – popping corn, oil, some preservatives, and the seasoning pouch contains vinegar, sugar, acid.  And apparently, this product contains milk.  What?  Where????

The Money Shot #2

Orville’s picture in stencil is even more weird looking…eek.

Two part gourmet snackitude!

Soylent green?

This is the individual seasoning packet.  Computer type. I’m slightly petrified of what’s inside.

One kilo of...salt?

This is what’s inside: finely ground salt and *dips finger in to taste* WHOA finely ground…vinegar powder?? HOLY MOLY That’s sour.  Wooo!

Everyone knows what microwave popcorn is, so let’s skip to the final product, shall we?

I love my giant Pyrex cup

The look of the popcorn isn’t surprising – I mean, it’s friggin’ popcorn. But the taste…

Pop pop pop!

MMmmm I like it!  I love salt and vinegar taste, but I admit, I was skeptical as to how this would be.  But it was great!  The powder, which was TOO sour alone, when spread among the buttery popcorn, was just right!  Salty, vinegary, and provided that the seasoning is distributed evenly, not overpowering.

One downside: the powder is so fine, and there’s not TOO much butter on the popcorn, so the fine dust doesn’t adhere to EVERYTHING.  As you take a bunch of kernels and pop them in your mouth, if you inhale at all, a cloud of sour goes into your lungs and you end up coughing like a flu patient.

BUT, that aside, this was some great popcorn. Orville, wherever you are – KUDOS!

—

2) The flavors of Fall!  As I mentioned in an earlier post, my Fall Four Major Food Groups come into full swing and taste appropriate during the Fall.  Spice, Gingerbread, Maple, and Pumpkin – all yummy tastes that match this weather perfectly.  I’ve had several friends bubble over with joy that Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte was back.  Good lord, you’ve never seen such giddiness.  But it makes sense – you can’t jump the gun on these flavors.  No one is biting into a big steaming loaf of fresh pumpkin bread in 98 degree sweltering weather.

(Oh, but I would.  I would.)

3) SPORTS. Are you kidding me, you didn’t think I would mention this???? October is a perfect sports month: postseason baseball every day, college football and professional football rule the weekends, pre-season hockey and (usually) basketball are beginning, NASCAR is chugging…gaaaaah sports sports sports sports.  THERE’S ONLY ONE OCTOBER.

To that end, October is going to hold a LOT of surprises for this blog this month. I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve. You’ll see. Stay tuned.

Sincerely, Junk Food Guy