Emilie Baltz, author of a new recipe book called "Junk Foodie" demonstrates how to take junk food and turn it into surprisingly delicious snacks that are a step above the usual picnic fare.
Many people have preferred summer-food pairings. Lobster and white wine. Heirloom tomatoes with fresh mozzarella and a sprig of basil.
Or, Fritos and Mountain Dew. And perhaps pork rinds with Hot Tamales. (click below to read more)
Cool Ranch Doritos with Table Talk pineapple pies are favorite ingredients of Emilie Baltz, a graphic designer who likes to experiment in the kitchen. "That Cool Ranch flavor, whatever chemical it is, mixes with the acid of pineapple in a really delicious way," she says.
Pineapple Pie and Cool Ranch Doritos: The snack is all yellow, but it packs a variety of flavors, says author Emilie Baltz, who loves Cool Ranch with the acidity of pineapple in Table Talk mini pies.
Ms. Baltz last year published "Junk Foodie," a cookbook that includes a recipe for Balinese spring rolls that calls for orange Fruit Roll-Ups, potato sticks, grapefruit jelly beans, the inside of a Mounds bar and Utz Red Hot Potato Chips. "You can get fusiony with American junk food," she says.
Snack-food manufacturers introduce about 2,000 new products in the U.S. each year. Many are variations of snacks that have sold well, says David Sprinkle, research director at Packaged Facts, a market-research company. Earlier this year, Wise Foods Inc. debuted Cinnamon & Sugar Flavored Popcorn. Mars Chocolate North America introduced M&M's Pretzel Chocolate Candies last year. Planters rolled out Crème Brûlée Almonds last October.
"There is a big trend in mixing flavors and right now sweet and salty is going on," Mr. Sprinkle says.
"Salt has a tremendous effect on chocolate because it brings out the savoriness and the yeasty notes," says Marie Wright, vice president and senior flavorist at manufacturer International Flavors & Fragrances Inc.
New snack food must delight the approximately 10,000 taste buds in people's mouths, according to the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, a research institute. Receptors in the buds detect one of five taste qualities: sweet, sour, bitter, salty and savory.
Our other senses play an important role, too. When we eat a bite of watermelon, our taste buds detect the sweetness, our mouths feel the texture and our olfactory systems bring in the flavor. An emotional or nostalgic connection to watermelon can influence our enjoyment (or revulsion) as well.
Snack-food pairings tend to start at restaurants and trickle down to high-end candy outlets and then mass production. Sea salt in candy, particularly chocolate and caramel, recently broke through, and Mr. Sprinkle predicts one of the next combinations to go broad will be chocolate and bacon. "It's almost like fashion where brown is the new black," he says.
Vosges Haut-Chocolat introduced the Mo's Milk Bacon Bar in 2007 and the Mo's Dark Bacon Bar in 2008. "The bacon bars are our best-selling candy bars," says Natalie Markoff, a spokeswoman for the high-end chocolatier. This past winter, restaurant chain Denny's offered a Maple Bacon Sundae.
Pretzels and Tomato Juice: The colorful pairing creates an oddly refreshing jolt of salt for a nonalcoholic cocktail-hour treat.
Different flavors pair well together when they have common key components, says Ms. Wright. "Think of the smokiness of bacon. In cocoa beans there are similar smoky notes. In bacon, there are vanilla notes and vanilla pairs so nicely with chocolate."
Alyssa Vitrano, who works at a digital advertising agency, also publishes a website GrapeFriend.com, which deals in part with wine and food pairings. She recently was certified by the American Sommelier Association in Blind Tasting and Viticulture & Vinification. But, she says: "Even more than red wine, I always want a Diet Coke with pizza because the effervescence cuts through the fat content of the cheese."
At Frito-Lay, executive chef Stephen Kalil says "sensorial dynamic contrasts" are an important element in ingredient pairings: the warmth of hot fudge and the cold of ice cream, the spice of Doritos and the cool of ranch dip. To ensure he is keeping his mind open to possible pairings, Mr. Kalil appears in a Web video series called Fritos Pie Remix. He says corn-chip lovers submit suggestions of random ingredients—pumpkin, ice cream and ham, for instance—and Mr. Kalil posts videos that show him working them into Frito-adorned concoctions.
Faygo Redpop and Popcorn: Faygo Beverages, of Michigan, says customers submit their favorite ways of mixing its sodas with other foods, including sausage and Jell-O. Above, a perennial favorite: pop and popcorn.
For J. Courtney Sullivan, it's Peanut M&Ms and white wine from a hotel minibar. When on the West Coast this month as part of a tour to promote her new novel, "Maine," Ms. Sullivan visited four cities in five days, including San Francisco and Portland, Ore. When she travels for leisure, Ms. Sullivan says she seeks out "locavore restaurants." But when she's hopping planes and zipping from bookstore to bookstore in rented cars, her palate craves a simultaneous burst of salty and sweet, washed down with screw-top Chardonnay.
For Ms. Sullivan it's about the crunch against the salted sweetness. "One glass of white wine gives it that little extra decadence," she says.
At a 7-Eleven in Southampton, N.Y., a favorite pairing for vacationing Manhattanites, says the store's assistant manager, Rana Irfan: "Red Bull and Power Bars."
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