Goldfish crackers have always held a warm place in my snacking heart. Portable, cheap, and decently healthy, they were not only a go-to side item in my lunchbox as a youth, but they’re still an occasional treat for me to this day. I’ve always been partial to the pretzel Goldfish variety, but frankly I’ve never met a Goldfish snack cracker I did not enjoy, and that includes Pepperidge Farm’s expanding line of “Flavor Blasted” Goldfish. With a “Goldfish extravaganza” sale on at Albertson’s a few weeks ago, I recently stocked up on several packages of the cheese flavored crackers, including the new Monstrous Mozzarella Stick flavor.
I have to admit that it is getting hard to tell the different kind of goldfish crackers apart. I definitely liked this new flavor, but found them hardly distinguishable from the already existing Pizza and Parmesan flavored Goldfish crackers. The powder is a bit spicier than the powder used for the Parmesan crackers, but lacks enough of the subtle yet sweet tomato flavor that I would associate with a mozzarella stick. Still, I enjoyed the hints of garlic and onion powder, and found the flavoring component to deliver a reasonably intense (albeit short-lived) flavor “blast.” Unfortunately Goldfish epitomize the very concept of the snacking equivalent to the law of diminishing returns, which led me to more or less devour the entire bag in one sitting just to get some benefit from my tasting experience. While their was a Parmesan cheese flavor, I didn’t find the flavor overly cheesy, and the could not distinguish a unique mozzarella flavor apart from the cheddar and Parmesan. I hate to say it, but in a way you can reduce these down to a bag of regular Goldfish with one of those cheap “pizza seasoning” blends they give you at Papa Johns or Domino’s.
Look, Pepperidge Farm’s Monstrous Mozzarella Stick Goldfish are good, but they’re not great. Like all Goldfish crackers they have their limits, and after the first couple of handfuls become dull and unrecognizable from their regular cheddar cheese counterparts (or any other baked cheese cracker for that matter.) Nevertheless, a snack company can do far worse than Goldfish crackers, which will continue to be an occasional snacking buy for me in the future.
