Memories...

Let me take you back to a simpler time. It was the 1970's and you didn't have to worry about high gas prices or the flailing economy or an unpopular war. Wait a minute...the 70's actually were a lot like that. Hmm.

Anyway, it was somewhere around '75 or '76 and there were only three types of Doritos available to the general public. Original (who really bought those?), Nacho Cheese (as hawked by Avery Schrieber on Saturday morning television) and Taco.

This is a post for those of us who remember and love Taco Doritos.

I don't know why and I don't know when, but one day the assholes at the evil Doritos headquarters decided to stop making Taco Doritos. Oh sure, you heard rumors. They still made them, but they only sell them in Texas. Or I hear they have a surplus supply of them in North Florida...but only in the panhandle. Rumors designed to keep the hopes of a chubby 10 year-old boy alive!

I don't know if any of these rumors were true. I only knew the cold, hard abandonment of never having my favorite chips ever again. I would never pick up a Taco Doritos chip and find the side with all the flavoring* and put it directly on my tongue so I could lick it's deliciousness off in a slow, circular motion until it was time to bite down on the chip itself. I would never ever feel that sensuous joy again.

*Oh you know what I'm talking about. They've improved on the flavoring of chips over the years so that both sides now get some of the flavoring, but there is always one side that has MORE of the flavoring. And back in 1975, Taco Doritos only had flavoring on one side. Deep, dark, black, tempting Taco flavoring.

The fools at Frito-Lay have even tried to trick us over the years into thinking they were bringing Taco Doritos back. They introduced Taco Bell Doritos, but that was a pale imitation. They gave us Zesty Taco a year or so ago, but they only sold it in bags mixed with Chipotle Ranch. And there were still those rumors that Taco...original Taco Doritos were available somewhere in the South. You know, just to piss off us Yankees.

Tonight, at the Super Stop & Shop in town I thought I found the Holy Grail!

TACO FLAVORED DORITOS!!!
(I would provide a picture, but I can't fine one on the web anywhere - Earl)

It says right on the bag "They're back by popular demand" in odd lettering. Too good to be true? Unfortunately, yes. They are cheesier (?) for some reason than the Zesty Taco chips sold in the combo bag, and no where near the same flavor as Original Taco so many years ago. I don't understand it.

I don't understand why a chip that was loved by so many (read Michael Ian Black talk about the chip here) can't be duplicated. Why can't they just hire somebody who worked for Frito-Lay back in the mid-70's and put them on the job and give us what we fucking want!

Final verdict: Not bad, but not great either. I'm gonna have to live with the disappointment, I guess. Crap!