Mexicano – Corn Chips – Sour Cream & Chives

It seems that Mexicano has been pumping out some new flavour recently, or maybe I just never noticed them before. You sure as sh1t can’t miss them now, the corn chip section has evolved into an imposing wall of all the Mexicanos flavours looming out over shoppers from the shelves. 

I don’t believe I have ever seen a sour cream and chives flavour of corn chip before. Seemed a bit wrong to me at first, but thinking about it, sour cream has been used in Mexican cuisine most of the time I have eaten it. I am hearing that maybe something called ‘Mexican crema’ is more authentic, but we seem to have settled for sour cream as a decent substitute outside of Mexico.

I had to look it up, and it turns out chives can grow in Mexico too, so my initial apprehension is probably wrong. Sour cream and chives seems to be a perfectly legitimate flavour for corn chips. Especially because – Mexicano corn chips are not actually Mexican, they are  made in New Zealand from New Zealand grown corn.

Despite being 11,103 kms away from Mexico,  it seems from the back of the packet that these corn chips are actually created in a traditional way – steeping corn overnight, grinding into ‘masa’ and forming into chips before baking.

See? They used the word ‘masa’ proving that they are doing things the Mexican way. For those of you who are ignorant of Latin cameraman food preparations techniques, ‘masa’ is a dough made primarily from maize (corn) and used to make sh1t like tortillas and tortilla (corn) chips.

These were most excellent – there’s a bunch of other grains in here that give the chip some extra depth and flavour. Chip is rigid and crunchy without being hard and has a perfect mealy texture. Would work well with guacamole or salsa, but I had them unadulterated by dips and they were delicious. The sour cream and chive flavouring was a little on the subtle side, but I am actually happy about it – the flavours of the chip itself was allowed to show through. I actually think boring ‘natural’ flavour might actually be good with a chip like this.

maize-s well be Mexican – 7/10