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| Nutty goodness! |
On a recent road trip, the wife and I stopped at a small-town convenience store to stock up on Diet Coke, beef jerky, trucker pills and other driving necessities. As we perused the endless aisles of Eisenhower-era snack cakes, Zagnut bars and Conway Twitty cassettes, a glint of gold caught my eye from a display near the register.
Nut Poppers.
Some marketing genius at Planters decided that �Nut Poppers� was a good name for a snack food. I can’t be certain, but I’m pretty sure that �Nut Poppers� was also part of a hazing ritual on my high school’s football team.
a sack of Nut Poppers, a “School of Rock” promotional notebook and The Evil Dead on DVD |
Now Nut Poppers might be the tastiest snack food on the face of the Earth. But with that name, its time on the shelves of our nation’s truck stops, Kwik-E-Marts and supermarkets is limited.
So in the interest of preserving a short-lived piece of snack-food history, the Badmouth team leapt into action. I bought some Nut Poppers to conduct what may end up being the only recorded Nut Poppers taste test.
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| John reacts to recieving a “nut popper” |
Nut Poppers come in bags � or �sacks� as I like to call them. And I was able to score a sack full of �Nutty Original� as well as a sack full of �Cheddar� Nut Poppers. The back of the packaging hinted at a third flavor, �Ranch,� but no Ranch nut sacks could be found.
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| Patti & Tasha giggle at the name |
I assembled a crack team of taste testers, including myself, wife Patti and my niece Natasha. Patti and Natasha both got quite a kick out of the name �Nut Poppers,� while I couldn’t help envisioning a more literal nut-related kick.
We started with �Nutty Original.� I tore into the nut sack with my teeth.
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| bite my sack |
Nut Poppers are peanuts covered in a crunchy coating. According to the packaging, the coating on my nuts was made out of wheat flour, cornstarch, peanut oil and �hydrogenated rapeseed,� which I think was included mainly because it sounds naughty.
The back of the package also promised that �It’s a whole new nut experience.� Speaking as a guy, I’ve been looking for a whole new nut experience since high-school.
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| Tasha bites down hard! |
We poured the Nut Poppers into a bowl. Each Nut Popper was about the size of a Peanut M&M. Patti, Natasha and I all grabbed a handful of �Nutty Original.�
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| Poppin’ nuts in my mouth |
The general consensus was that they weren’t bad. Patti felt they reminder her of peanut-filled Combos. Natasha and I weren’t reminded of anything in particular. Patti and Natasha were a little hesitant about fully immersing themselves in the Nut Poppers experience, so I led by example by stuffing my mouth full of Nut Popper goodness.
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| Patti grabs a nut |
The coating on my nuts was a little salty, though, so I needed a glass of water in order to wash them down. In the end, we all agreed that they weren’t that bad � not good enough to overcome the crappy name, but not too bad.
Then we moved on to the Cheddar.
I sensed trouble from the beginning. The Cheddar Nut Poppers were an unholy orange color that previously could only be found in traffic safety cones and Lucille Ball’s hair. In all other respects they looked a lot like the �Nutty Original� flavor.
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| Be afraid. Be very fraid. |
But the taste, oh lord the taste.
You could describe the flavor as �cheddar� in the same way that you could describe a catfish wrapped in a soiled diaper and left in the sun for three days as �fishy.� The three-way consensus was that this was one of the most repugnant snack foods that any of us had ever tasted. Cheddar was definitely not better.
One last thing. We found a few �mutant� Nut Poppers in the bag. Most were just broken or hollow. But we found one that was malformed in a more suggestive fashion. So we leave you with one final image. |
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If that doesn’t turn you off of Nut Poppers, I don’t know what will.
Tags: nut poppers
I love this story about your tasty nuts. I’m gonna go to the store and get me a sack right now. I love nuts! Lots and lots of nut!
MMMMMMMMMMMM…nutz.
Good times. Good times with nuts.
Now I have to try them, just to say I did.
Well researched article. So what’s next from the snack geniuses at Planters? I’d like to see something called “Dickfores!”
Well researched article. So what’s next from the snack geniuses at Planters? I’d like to see something called “Dickfores!”
QUICK! Get to Safeway on Alhambra. They have the Ranch flavored Nut Jobbies.
After experiencing “Cheddar,” I think I’m all done with Nut Poppers for a while…
I recently visited the local Target here in New York City and they had a shelf full of Ranch style Nut Poppers– so if you’re wondering why there aren’t any Ranch Nut Poppers on the West Coast, it’s because we’re hoarding them all!
Of course, having read Mr. Marcotte’s wonderful write-up, I just *had* to try these legendary peanuts in deep-fried goo! And my review is… well, they’re not horrible like the Cheddar ones are, but they’re not especially great either. They remind me of Ranch Corn Nuts, except not as jaw-breakingly hard.
And like Corn Nuts, my reaction upon opening the bag and trying a few was “Hmmm…these really aren’t that good….and yet I can’t stop eating them!”
At any rate, you gotta wonder– how can something that contains a whole roasted peanut end up tasting absolutely nothing like peanuts? If you have ideas, post them here!
you ate them wrong John, Maybe they would have tasted better if you put um in your mouth and ya suck um.
you ate them wrong John, Maybe they would have tasted better if you put um in your mouth and ya sucked um.
I’m surprised that John Ashkroft hasn’t sent a special prosecution team out to round up all the product, confiscate the records of the people who bought them, and tossed them into cages at Guatanamo! Ohmygawd, this is even naughtier than the bare breasted statue of Lady Justice that he draped at the “Justice” Department!
how does it feel to get kick in the nuts
I just bought the ranch ones… mostly for the same reasons as you. They’re not too bad.
The best part was, they were two or three items down from another nut product “Hot Honeys” Of course, I bought those too.
mmmmmmmmmm, boy i tripped over a bag-o-nut poppers one time outside a truck stop in tucumcari new mexico the summer of 19 and 72. the wind was as hot as a blast furnace and well i chased that shiney little bag-o-nothen damn near on to i-40 just to see what the fuss was about. turns out it had been converted in to a scorpion palace so i put it back down real gentle like and went on in for deelicious moutain dew.
I got something like this a long time ago at aPhillipino grocery, only they were Mung flavored, I don’t know what that is, but it beats the hell out of ranch as a peanut flavoring. The main reason I bought them is that when I picked them up, the lady said, “White people like those”. I guess it’s true, if Planter’s is selling them here now. To think I might have ended up with a big thing of shrimp paste if she hadn’t said “That’s stinky. White people don’t like that”. Anyway, Planters should use that in the commercials “White people like these”.
dude i have nuts
Sweet!
Caswell’s (a local food outlet for outdated [?] or overstocked goods) has ALL THREE flavors of Nut Poppers: Regular, Cheddar AND Ranch. Come to Maine – you get FOUR (4) bags for ONE dollar ($1.00)!! I’m going to stock up with a ten dollar bill when I get out of here at 5 P.M. EDT.
No, I am NOT kidding! Enjoyed your comments on these crunchy delights! Would you believe I get SIX bars of Kllogg’s K-Time Nut (& Fruit) bars for ONE dollar ($1.00)? CASWELL’s – THE place to go!
I want to get kicked in the balls. Will anyone tell me how someone will kick me in the groin. I want to feel it real bad.
Please someone kick me in the nuts.
Getting kicked in the balls hurts, unless your a very sexy girl, then it helps the pain…