The boldly foolish taste of Cheeseburger Doritos

Yesterday, I sampled this food product:

I'm not entirely sure what to make of it, though I think it's fair to say that this is terrible, in multiple senses of that word. It materialized in the vending machine at work, and after enduring various office titterings and speculation about what it tastes like from people too timid to take the plunge, I boldly chose to gamble 55 cents on the experience.

First, though, a little background: It turns out that Dorito technology has advanced exponentially since the concept of a blue bag sent shockwaves through the snack world when Cool Ranch was introduced in 1986 (check out this early commercial starring Jay Leno; what would he sell today? adult diapers? flavorless gruel?). I knew about Blazing Buffalo, but there is now an array of Doritos flavors that no man should ever require: tacos, jalapeño poppers, "pizza cravers." Emphasis on the word flavors, since I doubt that anything else about these chips has any true relationship with an actual taco. (And note: The original Doritos variety, dating back to the 1960s, was labeled "taco," but those were merely the taste of your familiar taco shells. These newer chips—specifically labeled "Tacos at Midnight"—supposedly taste like the shell and the meat and the toppings and probably what comes back up an hour later.) I noticed wacky chips when I spent a summer in Great Britain 18 years ago—I made it my seasonal goal to try everything from prawn cocktail to T-bone steak—but meat-based chips took some time to catch on here.

But now there's cheeseburger flavor. Officially they're "DORITOS® Late Night All Nighter Cheeseburger Flavored Tortilla Chips," which makes me wonder what Early Morning In Bed By 10 Cheeseburger would taste like. Is the concept of a cheeseburger at 3am more appealing than one in the afternoon, from a tortilla-cheap-eating standpoint? Must be, because Frito-Lay surely hires more skilled ad wizards than I.

Anyway, the experience: I opened the bag, and I was immediately olfactorily transported back to middle school, when many a glorious weekend afternoon was spent eating a Whopper at the Livingston Mall. These chips smell intensely of Burger King—not McDonald's, not Wendy's (though a coworker said the scent reminded him of White Castle)—but that distinct ketchupy char aroma of the King.

The actual taste was far more complex. The BK similarity persisted, with the flavor seeming to come at me from all directions at once—a little ketchup here, some cheese there, a healthy dose of pickles. This is not unlike a good cheeseburger, come to think of it, where the joy is in the nearly overpowering conglomeration of varied but complementary tastes. However, one taste dominated above all: corn. That bland yet not unpleasant corniness at the root of Doritos, more familiarly drowned in a radioactive haze of tangy cheese. Miraculously, cheeseburger Doritos tasted exactly like what a snack-food neophyte would expect: a junky cheeseburger alchemically imbued into a corn chip. Fascinating. Disgusting.

In Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation (one of few books that I can legitimately claim changed my life), he makes a visit to a "flavor factory" in New Jersey, where familiar tastes are artificially synthesized, later to be added to way more foods than you expect (his initial focus is on french fries). He explains how science can conjure up almost any taste chemically, easily adding it to foods without altering their appearance. One compound can make something taste like marshmallow; another provides the taste of fresh-cut grass, if you wanted that. It's funny to laugh at this, but it's also somewhat disturbing; it's the kind of science that inspires apocalyptic fiction, when our souls are gone and only the synthetic remains. No more grass, just grass-reminiscent chemical formulae.

Despite my mild revulsion (and the sudden realization of just how salty all Doritos are), I made it through most of the bag. But I felt skanky afterward, perhaps more mentally than physically. I went down the block for a salad—fresh carrots, cherry tomatoes, bright green peas, all my favorite veggies. But somehow, it tasted bland, unalive, inert. I ate only half the bowl.

Whopper lust, part 3: Sated

I finally had that Whopper. Long week, I deserve it.

It was delicious.

I feel like llama shit now. Nothing but wheatgrass for me till 2011.

But let me say that I was pleasantly surprised by my first visit to a Burger King in many years. The store was clean, bright, well-designed. The people behind the counter were courteous and competent. My sandwich was served quickly and looked reasonably appetizing.

This is somewhat surprising. I rarely visit fast-food places (not counting Subway and Dunkin' Donuts, both of which I should keep a cot in), but usually when I do, the stench of depression fills my nostrils with acrid viciousness. Some time ago, I patronized a Wendy's, and it felt like a peacekeeping mission to Kosovo. And please, don't get me started about my annual trip to White Castle; PTSD is real, you know.

So big ups to the BK, despite my llama-shit-ness at the moment. Here's another ad, a classic. My stomach might be wobbly, but my heart is warmed:

Whopper lust, part two

As promised, more on Whoppers. More on Burger King. Specifically, Burger King advertising.

In 1985, BK was in trouble, with Wendy's gaining fast-food market share thanks to the success of the "Where's the Beef?" campaign (which naturally, led to Walter Mondale's crushing victory in the 1984 presidential election). So the King tried something new. Watch this ad:



Several more ads followed. Then we finally got a look at Herb:
That's the guy playing Herb posing with one of the many cardboard cutouts of him in BKs nationwide. He was your garden-variety nerd. Not a lot of imagination here, despite the fact that the chain spent $40 million on advertising.

Clearly, consumers were confused—I was a dumb little kid, and even I knew it didn't make sense. This was the only guy in the country who's never had a Whopper? That couldn't be possible. I was an absolute culinary junkie, an acolyte at the altar of fast-food and manipulative advertising, and even I'd eaten at Burger King only a handful of times (we were more a McDonald's family). There had to a lot of people who simply never made it in. And would someone who at ate Burger King look like that? Wouldn't be more likely be a sandal-wearing granola vegetarian hippie? Or at least the Jainist kid in my social studies class?

The campaign flopped. $40 million down the tubes, despite the fact that Herb himself played guest timekeeper for the epic Roddy Piper v. Mr. T showdown at Wrestlemania 2.

So I've been reminded of Herb lately, witnessing Burger King's new campaign, "Whopper Virgins":



That's really all you need to see. This series of ads is pissing a lot of people off, and rightly so. First of all, "Whopper Virgins" is a horrible phrase—associating sex with Burger King is incredibly unappetizing, both culinarily and libidinously.

Second, yes, you could view this as further exploitation of the world's indigenous people (they're also covering Greenland Inuit and Hmong tribesman), but I think that misses the point. This is a stupid endeavor, from a marketing standpoint. Appetities and tastes are so dependent on cultural context that what a guy from middle-of-nowhere Greenland thinks about food is completely irrelvant to whether I might enjoy it or not. He could serve me the absolute greatest food made by the finest chef in his village, and I assure you I'd puke it up onto the ice within seconds (then again, I have the palate of a protozoan). Sure, it might be interesting to see the reaction of anyone who's never eaten a hamburger—something so elemental to me and my culture—just as I'm sure Mr. Inuit would get a kick out of watching me puke up his haute cuisine. But interesting isn't always persuasive, and it wouldn't do much to persuade me how I spend my hard-earned and carefully wasted fast-food dollar. When it comes to food, people are not the same wherever you go; we might as well be thousands of different species.

Clearly, putting a Whopper in the hands of a superhero works much better. BK should stick with that.

And no, I still haven't eaten the Whopper I've been craving. At this point, I'm holding out just to prove that I'm a man.

Whopper lust, part one

You know it, you love it: the Facebook meme "25 Random Things About Me." Being a performer and a self-described quizmaster, it's hardly surprising that I participated. My No. 23 was the following:
"23. I have been craving a Whopper every single day since last summer, yet I haven't had one (despite walking by a Burger King to and from work)."

This is true, as is everything on my list. A detail I omitted: The event that set off my Whopper lust was seeing Iron Man. There's some very prominent product placement, when Tony Stark returns from the Middle East, says his first order of business is acquiring "an American cheeseburger," and is soon after seen with Burger King wrapper in hand. I'm usually so scornful of brazen product placement, so maybe part of the reason I've resisted temptation is that I don't want to feel like I'm a sucker for Big Marvel.

The last time I consumed a Whopper was probably seven years ago, when I was working nights in Chinatown and the dining options were limited (yes, I'm one of those people). It was delicious, well indicated by the picture above. I'm a hamburger fan anyway, and between this memory of tastiness, the allure of advertising, the residual childhood joy of any fast-food restaurant, and the continual desire to spend as little as humanly possible on food (I told you), the desire has been a steady one, if unfulfilled.

Oddly, I consumed a Whopper in my dream just last night, as I sat in a motel room with my childhood friend Roger Heller. That sandwich was absolutely disgusting, better indicated by this:

Now that just looks sad. (That's Wikipedia's Whopper illustration, BTW.) Perhaps part of the reason I've resisted the enticements of the King is that I'm afraid to be disappointed. The Whopper lust is a greater joy than the sandwich itself, which will probably not be much of a joy, come to think of it.

Speaking of which: In response to my "25 Random Things" post, my friend Hollianna Bryan—one of the most acerbically witty women I've ever had the pleasure of knowing, and yes, a distant relative of the three-time Democratic nominee for President—wrote:

#23. let me explain how that works.
1. you walk up to the door of Burger King
2. open it
3. enter
4. walk up to the disaffected cashier
5. request in a clear voice "I'd like a Whopper please" (politesse not optional)
6. pay for it
7. and then wait until the other disaffected worker gives you one, which you take.
it's really very very simple. of course, i might have led you to the Whopper but i can't make you eat it.

And I responded…

Ah, but you left out the next seven steps…
8. Eat the Whopper. Halfway through, realize it's pretty disgusting.
9. Throw away the last eighth of it, along with the wrapper, continuing the despoiling of our environment.
10. Have a stomachache
11. Not want to eat for the next three days
12. Some personal biological processes that you can figure out for yourself
13. Fall yet another step down the fitness ladder
14. Feel like a sucker every time I walk by Burger King for the next six months

I've gone on too long, and the original ostensible point of this post was to comment on Burger King's history of bizarre Whopper advertising: from Herb to Whopper Virgins. More to come, as Carson said.