I’m not talking about big, fluffy, squishy, yeasty, warm, salty, smells-like-the-good-childhood-we-all-deserved pretzels, but rather those nasty, quasi-cardboardish, enrobed by slimy brown tree-barkish pretzel STICKS that come in bags of 2 or 3 thousand, ready to be noshed a handful of twiggy stems at a time.
What’s to like?
OK, they’re a cheap salt source when you gotta have some salt, I suppose, and if downed with enough beer and mustard dipping sauce, they approach something resembling a foodlike product, and I’ll admit they lack the significant calories of their huge, puffy, ambrosial cousins…does anything else redeem them? Are they simply a way to get dipping sauces into your mouth?
I like to melt a hunk of white chocolate, sometimes milk chocolate, and dip pretzels in them. The pretzel provides the vehicle for salt and sugar and tastes oh so good. I’ll also put the mini-sticks in vanilla ice cream for the same reason.
I’ll also nosh on them plain just to get a relatively healthy salt fix. But yeah, unlike the fresh soft pretzels, there’s not a heckuva lot of innate taste.
Pretzels are merely a salt delivery system with crunch. Rather like chips, but without the grease. Or potatoes. Chocolate dipped pretzels are also quite good, the salty and sweet tastes combining to create an oddly appealing combination of flavours.
Of course, if you’re not a bit fan of things salty, pretzels probably won’t really seem like such a bright idea.
The big ones are just little loaves of bread with salt dumped on top. The only have an inferior, niche role in the world. The little ones real. My secret to riches is going to be inventing pretzels there are just crunchier than the rest so that a few neurons spike when someone first tasted them. I am also going to work on the extract best salt tread like the things tire companies research.
And the sticks - what you do is get maybe a dozen or so and get them into a bundle. Then you put the bundle in your mouth with one end in one cheek and the other end in the other cheek. Then suck. After the saliva/salt fest then bite down and crunch away. Mr. Salty were the ones from my childhood.
Oh, hell yes - Rold Gold Tiny Twists are the tastiest. Other brands taste like cardboard compared to them. They are a perfect snack food for munching while watching a movie or a football game - no greasy fingers, bite size (so no crumbs), and they go great with beer.
Never have liked pretzals. I will eat them in preference to peanuts (which do annoying things to my gut) but only one or two, just for politeness. Can’t see what the appeal of them is, either. Other than they’re traditional somehow for booze-ups.
You AREN’T Stephen Colbert??? You have no idea how disillusioned I am, sweetcheeks.
I will admit that I have eaten and sorta liked the spicy pretzel nuggets (can’t recall, are they called “fire nuggets” or something of the like?) but then they have had plenty o’bad fat added to make that delicious seasoning stick to 'em, and naturally, fat & seasoning add all kinds of tastebud-inspiring deliciousness, even to cardboard. But I doubt I’d really ever go and BUY some of these for personal enjoyment. I think it’s partially a texture thing to me—that slimy outside combined with that chalky, splintery inside just doesn’t make the salt hit worthwhile to me.
And I do love me some SALT, contrary to popular belief! Rather swallow my sea salt on the outside of a full margarita glass, however.
There’s nothing quite as good as getting a fistful of the pretzel sticks and eating them one by one right from your fist. It’s like being a kid again!
Does anyone know what ever happened to Mr. Salty? Those were the BEST. Now I’m having to get my pretzel fixes with Rold Gold…or Hanover’s Sourdough Nibblers (them’s is YUMMY!)