A Rose is a Rose is a Rose

In 1913, Gertrude Stein penned the line "Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose" in her poem "Sacred Emily."  Over time, it's been modified and is often used to mean that things are what they are.

We've been in Israel for 3 months and we've done a pretty good job of resisting the urge to buy junk in the stores.  But we decided to have some fun today and get a large sampling of chips to taste and compare.

We started off simple: potato chips.  How could you go wrong?

The red and black bag is "Mexican flavored".  Sure enough, they were met with the response I expected.  Gabi said, "That's barbeque.  It stinks."  Alice immediately grabbed the water bottle and chugged away.

I have to say, those responses were better than what followed them tasting the sour cream and onion (that would be the orange bag) -- both of them spit it out.  I wish the camera was on to capture their faces of utter disgust.

Finally, the purple bag.  This is the barbeque flavored chip.  Alice seemed to like it.  Gabi didn't try it.  I thought they were quite tasty.

So next we turned to an old favorite: Doritos.

Well, to say that these weren't quite what we expected is an understatement.  The yellow bag elicited, "They don't taste like anything."  Sure enough, they're plain corn chips with a Doritos label.  The purple bag is "grill flavor."  It's basically a version of barbeque.  Alice definitely got chili powder while Gabi just agreed that they were spicy.

So take three: Cheetos.  They're a favorite back home (when we buy them, which isn't often).

The yellow/orange bag on the right was a miss.  The Hebrew at the bottom says, "A corn and peanut snack."  Neither girl like it, using words like yuck and disgusting.  I agree with them.

The blue bag might be the highlight of the experiment.  Here's a picture of what was inside.

Yup, dolphin shaped cheese puffs.  Gabi thought they were nasty.  Alice said, "They're like cheese balls."  That's about right.

Continuing my walk down memory lane is this bag:

The bag is pretty clear but in case you can't make it out, Alice modeled for us:

Yup -- bugles.

It's hard to be adventurous when you're looking at pictures of chips but we branched out next.

I'm not sure what the brand name is but it's something like "Beesli."  In reality, they're crunchy corn snacks that neither girl liked.  Barbeque flavor on the left; grill flavor on the right.

Our next one was the winner.

These are bomba brand snacks.  Bomba is probably best known for their kids snack puffs.  In fact, they sell a version that looks just like a cheese puff (not a Cheeto) but has a peanut butter taste.  They are just terrible.

These are different -- a corn snack with chocolate nougat in the middle.  It's no wonder Gabi kept going back for more.

We did try one non-chip item.

They're essentially pretzels with sesame seeds on the outside.  Plain, they're meh (at best).  But slather on some nutella and you've got a winner on your hands.

What did we learn?  A few things.  One, it's easy to blow $20 on chips in the grocery store.  Two, grill flavor and barbeque flavor are pretty much the same.  And three, that a rose is a rose is a rose -- anywhere you go in the world, you can find chips and snacks just like you get at home.