By Keith Shaw
Senior Reviews Editor, Taquitos.net

ORLANDO — Among the many different packaging companies, equipment manufacturers and chip-tasting stations (yum!) at the 2001 Snaxpo convention were companies pitching the latest seasoning flavor.

"Everyone's all looking for the next barbecue or sour cream and onion," said a representative from McClancy Seasoning, one of the vendors pitching their wares.

While many might agree that perhaps salt and vinegar has made the jump from obscure taste into the realm of common flavor, there were a whole bunch of other flavors vying for their chance at snack stardom.

The vendors are hoping that snack manufacturers will buy their seasonings and create the next "gotta have" taste. Here, in no particular order, were some of the different seasonings that were out on display as potential new stars:

• California dill
• Butter and herb
• Rosemary
• Tangy dill and onion
• Chipolte Cheddar
• Chili lime
• Rosemary olive oil
• Cheddar and salsa
• Creamy habanero
• Baked Bliss (I can't remember what that tasted like)
• Roasted garlic
• Spicy (again, a generic?)
• Champagne flavor (really, the snack tasted like champagne)
• Chocolate mint
• Hot dog flavored (with ketchup seasoning)
• Bacon barbecue
• Spicy orange mandarin
• Pepper steak
• Jalapeno
• Chalupa (Really, I'm not making this up). It tasted basically like a taco.
• Orange szechuan

Barbecue (or BBQ) flavors have splintered into several factions, including:

• Economy barbecue (Economy seems to be the term for a less expensive flavor that one would "private label," or use in generic store-brand chips).
• Organic barbecue
• Honey barbecue
• Carolina barbecue
• Mesquite barbecue

Kraft Ingredients, a spinoff from Kraft Foods, had five bowls of different cheddar flavors out for display, all with different crunchy cheese curls, including:

• Low-cost option
• Regular
• Velveeta flavor (this really did taste like I was eating Velveeta).

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