Review: J&D’s and The Oatmeal Sriracha Rooster Sauce Popcorn (A Crunchy Firestorm For Your Face!) & The NFL Has Completely Gone Off the Rails
Junk Food Nation, for any of you who are football fans: WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT FIASCO LAST NIGHT??? For those who need a quick recap, the referees in last night’s Patriots-Ravens game, once again on national TV, were calling penalties that weren’t there, not calling blatant penalties, and overall acting arbitrary and insane. And I’m not even a Patriots OR a Ravens fan! Honestly, the calls were so bad in BOTH directions that I found myself arguing for BOTH Belichick AND Harbaugh. The frustration clearly boiled over during a phantom unsportsmanlike conduct call on the Ravens sideline, and the fans voiced it:
That minute long BULL-SH*T chant is quite possibly the greatest television I’ve seen since LOST. And if YouTube eventually removes that video, no worries – you can see many replicas here and here. As the Sports Guy tweeted: “Moment Goodell officially passed Bettman as worst commish: Balt fans loudly chanting ‘bullshit!’ as NBC’s announcers mocked his fake refs.” Classic.
The game ended the only way possible, with a bizarre field goal that flew over the top of one upright, ruled good, and of course deemed unreviewable. WHAT!? Goodell, WTF. Your sport is quickly becoming a joke. Both teams last night deserved better.
Onto today’s junk food: J&D’s and The Oatmeal Sriracha Rooster Sauce Popcorn!!!!
I’ve been familiar with J&D’s for a while. Makers of one of my favorite condiments, Bacon Salt, they make items that make everything taste like bacon. I’m not even joking. Bacon Salt, Baconnaise, Bacon Sex Lube (yup), Bacon Lip Balm…the list goes on and on. The products themselves are amazingly porky, and deliver just as promised.
I’ve also been familiar with The Oatmeal for a bit too – created by Matthew Inman, The Oatmeal is just a great website with funny comics that says what all of us are thinking. Some of my personal favorites are AT THE GYM and 10 THINGS TO STOP TWEETING ABOUT. The Oatmeal is also known for their love of Sriracha.
So when a number of you emailed me that J&D’s and The Oatmeal were teaming up to make Sriracha Popcorn …well, I did a little jig and did what any good Junk Food Guy would do: I begged them for a bag to review.
Luckily, the people over at J&D’s are (as expected) super cool and told me to stop begging – they’d send me a bag of J&D’s and The Oatmeal Sriracha Rooster Sauce Popcorn 🙂 And in the mail it came a couple weeks ago. VICTORY!
Of course, the question was: what was to be expected of J&D’s and The Oatmeal Sriracha Rooster Sauce Popcorn? I mean, I love sriracha, but it is some POWERFUL STUFF. In preparation for this review, I had a few squirts to taste the flavor fully and POW – the spice knocked me off my feet.
Regular Sriracha is extremely potent. A fingerful of the Thai-based sauce might light your tongue on fire. It’s an amazing sauce though – chili peppers, vinegar, and garlic are the three main things you taste. You get a sweetness and sourness when you first taste it that rounds out into an amazing garlic flavor, and then the spice just KICKS YOU IN THE TEETH. It makes you cry, but then you want more.
Would this popcorn but SUPER SPICY??? I’m not sure I’d like that.
The Oatmeal website previews what I’m in for with this J&D’s and The Oatmeal Sriracha Rooster Sauce Popcorn. They also sell Sriracha undies that say RESPECT THE HOT COCK. The Rooster on the bottle, perverts. Dirty minds, you. Anyways, their description:
“Rather than making something so spicy it was inedible, we focused more on making it taste good. The recipe contains a mixture of garlic, peppers, salt, and has quite a kick to it. If you eat it really fast it’s got a respectable afterburn, but if you take it slow it’s like riding a riverboat through the jungles of dee-lish.”
Well, that’s interesting…so….not spicy?
The ingredients to this J&D’s and The Oatmeal Sriracha Rooster Sauce Popcorn look pretty good, and I like that you can see chiptole powder, malt vinegar powder, and dehydrated garlic (as opposed to garlic powder) amongst the ingredients.
J&D’s and The Oatmeal Sriracha Rooster Sauce Popcorn has been previewed by some other sites, here and here, but it looks like no one’s actually tried it yet. Junk Food Guy to the rescue?
I opened the J&D’s and The Oatmeal Sriracha Rooster Sauce Popcorn bag and took a BIG WHIFF…and nothing jumped out at my right away. Smelled sort of like buttery popcorn, to be honest. Maybe a little bit of cheesy smell, which is interesting because this popcorn has no cheese in it – just a little buttermilk.
Ok, enough smelling, Time to eat.
Chew chew chew…mmmm……mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…. well, that’s interesting.
Ok, let’s get this out of the way, right away: this J&D’s and The Oatmeal Sriracha Rooster Sauce Popcorn is not knockout spicy. In fact, to me (someone who eats actual Sriracha a lot), it’s not spicy at all.
But it does indeed taste good. But the key word to hold in your head is “MILD”
Let’s break it down. The popcorn used was standard. It’s packaged, so it doesn’t have a fresh popped taste, but it was fresh enough to give me good bite and chew, and didn’t feel soggy. Plus, no random corn kernels for me to break my teeth on.
Overall, the taste of popcorn was really interesting because it was creamy (probably because of the buttermilk) which was unexpected when I think of sriracha. The creaminess, honestly, helped marry all the flavors together but I was expecting something more harsh – like sriracha is.
Was there the sweetness of chili pepper? Yes – mildly. Despite no presence of tomato or red pepper powder, this popcorn had a distinct sweet tang that mimicked the sweet chili pepper taste of sriracha…mildly.
Did it have the vinegar sour? Mildly – There was enough to round of the flavor of the buttermilk and chili pepper to remind me of the sting of sriracha.
Was there garlic taste? Yes – Mildly. The garlic flavor was enough to give it a great flavor, without being overpowering and making your breath stink.
And was there a burn? Mildly…after a few mouthfuls you could definitely feel your tongue tingling. Actor Sis is quite the spice lightweight; she’d probably think this was very spicy.
Overall impression? It was indeed delicious, but unexpectedly mild. Basically, to me, this tasted like a slightly creamy popcorn with a very SLIGHT taste of sririacha. Almost as if you took a bag of popcorn, squirted some rooster sauce into the bag, and shook it up until it spread out completely. Enough to remind you of the flavor, but not feel like you’re eating popcorn dipped in sriricha.
Criticisms? I sort of WANTED to feel like I was eating popcorn dipped in sriracha! But I understand not wanting to punch up the spice since they’re trying to appeal to a wider audience. I do think the garlic and chili-vinegar-tang could have been upped a few clicks without adding spice.
Still, a tasty and savory snack that made me grin, and a cool collaboration all around. If J&D and The Oatmeal release a Round 2, I’d say go for gusto and make two versions: label one MILD and make one actual ROOSTER FIRESTORM FLAVOR! WE CAN HANDLE IT!
PURCHASED AT: Sent from J&D
COST: free (but you can buy it here or here for $6!)
Thoughts? Please comment below (I always reply) or hit me up on Twitter @junkfoodguy or LIKE my Facebook Page and message me there. Also, you can always email me at junkfoodguy@junkfoodguy.com. Let’s hang out.
Sincerely,
Junk Food Guy
Discuss - 21 Comments
“That’s the loudest manure chant I’ve ever heard.”
As for the strength of the sriracha flavor, I think this recipe might be the thing to try. Link. Once I get my hands on the proper equipment, I will try this and sprinkle it on my own popcorn.
@Shorneys: OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
As you could tell from my tweets last night, that game just pretty much emotionally drained me. The only good thing that came of that game is that I was able to fall asleep right after it was over with no problem. I now know what you mean by these games being too late. Seriously lets just start them at 8. I’d much rather go to sleep around 11:30pm Sunday than after 12am Monday
@Nick: yeah man. Sucky game. You know I’m not a Pats fan (or a Ravens fan) but I felt like EVERYONE was getting jobbed last night ridiculously.
And the late games is ridiculous too. Look, I can power through til 4am too if I’m partying…but if the only reason I’m staying up late is because the damn game is only reaching half time AT 10:20-10:30pm…then No. That is not ok. When the game ends close to midnight, it is not ok.
These refs are only making the games drag on as well. If it takes you over a minute to figure out a call, there is seriously a big problem there.
@Nick: Absolutely. Great quote from Deadspin today:
“The bad refs have taken everyone out of their element. You’re not even sure what you’re watching. I saw the Pats/Ravens game last night and it didn’t feel like the Ravens even won that game. It just felt like both teams were kicked in the nuts and then pushed out of the stadium.”
http://deadspin.com/5945824/the-scab-refs-and-the-nfl-slide-deeper-into-incompetence?utm_campaign=socialflow_deadspin_twitter&utm_source=deadspin_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow
That quote pretty much explains my feelings from the game last night but I feel like I was kicked in the heart as well aha.
Okay the world is officially ending, time to go make a bomb shelter.
@Nick: I’ll bring the junk food
Ya totally disgusted with the game last night. Those refs were awful for both teams. I hate staying up that late especially after a loss. Something has got to give here. I’m not sure what happened to Mccourty, but he was a big f-ing reason the pats lost last night. He can’t even intercept a pass right to him. Well the pats are playing the bills next week. It should be a good game. Fits can just throw it to mccourtys side. Both of your running backs are out though. As long as your o line is good fitz can have a field day.
Try putting some sriracha sauce on the popcorn.
@WIll, Mccourty might intercept the ball and fumble it with his luck as of late. I seriously can’t get over the lackadaisical play out of the defense at times during the game. I thought they were showing improvement but they regressed in my eyes.
Oh and bills vs. pats next week, @JFG wanna make a friendly wager?;]
@Nick: Always down for a wager…depending on what it is. What’d you have in mind?
@JFG, Hmm it’s a little early for me to be thinking but how about who ever wins get to decide a product for the other person to review? Say if I win, I could have you review some sort of junk food abomination and if you win you could have me review something disgusting ice cream related=p
@Nick, Ya I agree with you on defense. They were looking so good, but the titans and cardinals don’t have very good offenses. Balt is in a whole different league. It seemed every time the pats made a stop, they would get a penalty. It was so frustrating.
@Will: You on Twitter?
No, why do u ask?
I know why you ask now, for the contest. I came here first before I read today’s post.
@Will: Not just for the contest, but Nick Rovo and I BS during games via Twitter – figured we could all shoot the shit together
That sounds cool, I will have to check out twitter in the next few days. I will let you know.
hmmm might not buy that popcorn but it certainly is giving me inspiration to try a few squirts of the real stuff on my pop corn next time I have it. I love the burn
@Mitch: I mean, it DID taste good, but yeah adding actual Sriracha will do the trick if you want legit burn