Lay’s Classic Burger Flavor chips are actually the Wonka Gum of chips (in contrast to the Bolognese Hula Hoops). I don’t know what sorcery produced them, but they taste exactly like McDonald’s cheeseburgers. I think they took the pickle-flavored chip, which Belgium does very well, and added mustard and celery (according to the ingredients list) to somehow replicate the first bite of a McDonald’s burger (provided that the pickle isn’t hanging off the side of the burger like Jack on that door in the Atlantic- THERE WAS ROOM). Lay’s chose not to include a strong smoky flavor, like many of the meat-flavored chips use to reproduce meat flavor. The chips work well without the smoke.
When I bought these, I saw two women buying large bags for themselves. I understand why now. I imagine that if you crushed these and put them on an actual burger, biting into the burger might create a junk food worm hole. Maybe these chips are like McDonald’s spooky action at a distance. Although usually I’d refer to McDonald’s spooky action at a distance as my ability to actually gain weight while simultaneously eating McNuggets. (“Whaaaa? Why don’t my pants fit? Must be physics…there are so many things we’ll never understand about the universe!” *blithely walks into KFC while looking at workout videos on Instagram*).
JunkFoodJunket 
First and foremost, thank you for your erudition and dedication to the art and science of deconstructing snacks great and small. Had I known, as a younger man, that there was a future in critical snackology, I would have majored in it at university. But, as they say, “you can’t stop time” and “you can’t go back”. So, I am particularly grateful for the perspicacity you apply to what society has given the unfortunate cognomen “Junk Food”.
I found your latest piece on Lay’s Classic Burger Flavor Chips so enticing, so intriguing, so “delicious” that the day I see them on my grocer’s shelf they will instantly be whisked to my shopping cart.
The more one knows about something, the better one can appreciate and understand it. Please continue educating us, tempting us with tasty discoveries, and protecting us from misguided junk food. In my eyes you are the modern day Ferdinand Magellan discovering the flavors that will determine so many areas of our lives we cannot yet predict.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Neal
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