Junk Food Nation, for any of you who are football fans: WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT FIASCO LAST NIGHT???  For those who need a quick recap, the referees in last night’s Patriots-Ravens game, once again on national TV, were calling penalties that weren’t there, not calling blatant penalties, and overall acting arbitrary and insane.  And I’m not even a Patriots OR a Ravens fan!   Honestly, the calls were so bad in BOTH directions that I found myself arguing for BOTH Belichick AND Harbaugh.  The frustration clearly boiled over during a phantom unsportsmanlike conduct call on the Ravens sideline, and the fans voiced it:

That minute long BULL-SH*T chant is quite possibly the greatest television I’ve seen since LOST.  And if YouTube eventually removes that video, no worries – you can see many replicas here and here.  As the Sports Guy tweeted: “Moment Goodell officially passed Bettman as worst commish: Balt fans loudly chanting ‘bullshit!’ as NBC’s announcers mocked his fake refs.”  Classic.

The game ended the only way possible, with a bizarre field goal that flew over the top of one upright, ruled good, and of course deemed unreviewable.  WHAT!?  Goodell, WTF.  Your sport is quickly becoming a joke.  Both teams last night deserved better.

Onto today’s junk food: J&D’s and The Oatmeal Sriracha Rooster Sauce Popcorn!!!!

I’ve been familiar with J&D’s for a while.  Makers of one of my favorite condiments, Bacon Salt, they make items that make everything taste like bacon.  I’m not even joking.  Bacon Salt, Baconnaise, Bacon Sex Lube (yup), Bacon Lip Balm…the list goes on and on.  The products themselves are amazingly porky, and deliver just as promised.

I’ve also been familiar with The Oatmeal for a bit too – created by Matthew Inman, The Oatmeal is just a great website with funny comics that says what all of us are thinking.  Some of my personal favorites are AT THE GYM and 10 THINGS TO STOP TWEETING ABOUT. The Oatmeal is also known for their love of Sriracha.

So when a number of you emailed me that J&D’s and The Oatmeal were teaming up to make Sriracha Popcorn …well, I did a little jig and did what any good Junk Food Guy would do: I begged them for a bag to review.

Luckily, the people over at J&D’s are (as expected) super cool and told me to stop begging – they’d send me a bag of J&D’s and The Oatmeal Sriracha Rooster Sauce Popcorn 🙂 And in the mail it came a couple weeks ago.  VICTORY!

Of course, the question was: what was to be expected of J&D’s and The Oatmeal Sriracha Rooster Sauce Popcorn?  I mean, I love sriracha, but it is some POWERFUL STUFF.  In preparation for this review, I had a few squirts to taste the flavor fully and POW – the spice knocked me off my feet.

Regular Sriracha is extremely potent.  A fingerful of the Thai-based sauce might light your tongue on fire.  It’s an amazing sauce though – chili peppers, vinegar, and garlic are the three main things you taste.  You get a sweetness and sourness when you first taste it that rounds out into an amazing garlic flavor, and then the spice just KICKS YOU IN THE TEETH.  It makes you cry, but then you want more.

Would this popcorn but SUPER SPICY??? I’m not sure I’d like that.

The Oatmeal website previews what I’m in for with this J&D’s and The Oatmeal Sriracha Rooster Sauce Popcorn.  They also sell Sriracha undies that say RESPECT THE HOT COCK.  The Rooster on the bottle, perverts.  Dirty minds, you.  Anyways, their description:

“Rather than making something so spicy it was inedible, we focused more on making it taste good. The recipe contains a mixture of garlic, peppers, salt, and has quite a kick to it. If you eat it really fast it’s got a respectable afterburn, but if you take it slow it’s like riding a riverboat through the jungles of dee-lish.”

Well, that’s interesting…so….not spicy?

The ingredients to this J&D’s and The Oatmeal Sriracha Rooster Sauce Popcorn look pretty good, and I like that you can see chiptole powder, malt vinegar powder, and dehydrated garlic (as opposed to garlic powder) amongst the ingredients.

J&D’s and The Oatmeal Sriracha Rooster Sauce Popcorn has been previewed by some other sites, here and here, but it looks like no one’s actually tried it yet.  Junk Food Guy to the rescue?

I opened the J&D’s and The Oatmeal Sriracha Rooster Sauce Popcorn bag and took a BIG WHIFF…and nothing jumped out at my right away.  Smelled sort of like buttery popcorn, to be honest.  Maybe a little bit of cheesy smell, which is interesting because this popcorn has no cheese in it – just a little buttermilk.

Ok, enough smelling, Time to eat.

Chew chew chew…mmmm……mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…. well, that’s interesting.

Ok, let’s get this out of the way, right away: this J&D’s and The Oatmeal Sriracha Rooster Sauce Popcorn is not knockout spicy.  In fact, to me (someone who eats actual Sriracha a lot), it’s not spicy at all.

But it does indeed taste good.  But the key word to hold in your head is “MILD”

Let’s break it down.  The popcorn used was standard.  It’s packaged, so it doesn’t have a fresh popped taste, but it was fresh enough to give me good bite and chew, and didn’t feel soggy.  Plus, no random corn kernels for me to break my teeth on.

Overall, the taste of popcorn was really interesting because it was creamy (probably because of the buttermilk) which was unexpected when I think of sriracha. The creaminess, honestly, helped marry all the flavors together but I was expecting something more harsh – like sriracha is.

Was there the sweetness of chili pepper? Yes – mildly. Despite no presence of tomato or red pepper powder, this popcorn had a distinct sweet tang that mimicked the sweet chili pepper taste of sriracha…mildly.

Did it have the vinegar sour? Mildly – There was enough to round of the flavor of the buttermilk and chili pepper to remind me of the sting of sriracha.

Was there garlic taste? Yes – Mildly.  The garlic flavor was enough to give it a great flavor, without being overpowering and making your breath stink.

And was there a burn? Mildly…after a few mouthfuls you could definitely feel your tongue tingling.  Actor Sis is quite the spice lightweight; she’d probably think this was very spicy.

Overall impression?  It was indeed delicious, but unexpectedly mild.  Basically, to me, this tasted like a slightly creamy popcorn with a very SLIGHT taste of sririacha.  Almost as if you took a bag of popcorn, squirted some rooster sauce into the bag, and shook it up until it spread out completely.  Enough to remind you of the flavor, but not feel like you’re eating popcorn dipped in sriricha.

Criticisms? I sort of WANTED to feel like I was eating popcorn dipped in sriracha!  But I understand not wanting to punch up the spice since they’re trying to appeal to a wider audience.  I do think the garlic and chili-vinegar-tang could have been upped a few clicks without adding spice.

Still, a tasty and savory snack that made me grin, and a cool collaboration all around.  If J&D and The Oatmeal release a Round 2, I’d say go for gusto and make two versions: label one MILD and make one actual ROOSTER FIRESTORM FLAVOR!  WE CAN HANDLE IT!

PURCHASED AT: Sent from J&D

COST: free (but you can buy it here or here for $6!)

Thoughts? Please comment below (I always reply) or hit me up on Twitter @junkfoodguy or LIKE my Facebook Page and message me there. Also, you can always email me at junkfoodguy@junkfoodguy.com. Let’s hang out.

Sincerely,

Junk Food Guy