Middleswarth Potato Chips Are The Best Chips and I Will Die on This Hill

Welcome to #NotAnAd, where we post enthusiastically and without reservation about things we’re obsessed with from the world of food.

Most small towns are weird, but I feel like the small town I grew up in is particularly weird about food. I’m from the northeastern corner of Pennsylvania, locally referred to as NEPA or “Nee-Pah,” specifically Wilkes-Barre. We’ve got an obsession with pizza shops—like, more per capita than New York City, I’m pretty sure. We’ve got rival hot dog joints which are both named Abe’s, and the argument over which Abe’s is the superior Abe’s is literally the longest-running argument my boyfriend and I will ever have. We stan hard for Lionshead Beer, which is made in the city, and is definitely no better than a PBR, but it’s our PBR and that makes us idiotically proud.

And then there are Middleswarth potato chips. They’re actually made in Middleburg, a little west of Wilkes-Barre, but their distribution range in Pennsylvania is so small that for most of my life, I could’ve sworn we claimed them as our own, too. And like so many loyalties that stem out of hometown pride, I am fervently, irrationally devoted to these chips.

I do legitimately believe the flavor and texture of a Middleswarth potato chip is superior to any other chip I’ve encountered. I’ve yet to find a potato chip that has a texture and crunch that is even remotely similar to them, and that admittedly worries me a bit, because I have no earthly idea what they’re doing to these potatoes to get them to turn out this way. I’m sure whatever food-science-y thing it is can’t be good for me, but I can’t bring myself to care.

The plain chips are perfectly salty, but not shiny-greasy in the way other brands are. They're a classic sandwich chip, and hold up way better to dipping than your average Lay's. The barbecue flavored ones, though, are what people really go wild for. They don’t leave your fingers sticky like other brands, and they’re more spicy and savory than sweet. I’ve compared the ingredients label to other brands, and I think the difference is that Middleswarth doesn’t use any tomato or molasses flavoring in their barbecue seasoning, which is what I think gives other brands a sweetness bordering on fake-vingegar-y that makes me gag. I refuse to eat any barbecue chip that is not a Middleswarth Bar-B-Q chip. They all taste like crap, you’ve all had the wool pulled over your eyes, and I’m so sorry for you.

And sure, yeah, perhaps repeated exposure to them as a small child is responsible for that. I’m a child of divorced parents. When my brother and I would spend the weekend with our dad, the first stop would always be the grocery store to get a six-pack of Lion Brewery root beer, deli meats for a weekend’s worth of sandwiches, and Middleswarth. They literally have a bag size called “The Weekender”—bigger than the average chip bag, and enough to get two kids through a weekend of snacking. Shameless bribery for affection turned me into an absolute brand loyalist.

Now that I’m living outside of the Middleswarth distribution range, my appreciation for these chips has only grown more deeply entrenched. The package design! So unabashedly stuck in the 70s. (They’ve been around since 1942.) The little trees on the bottom, because, sure, Pennsylvania has pine trees, I guess?

The slogan! “There’s an ‘A’ in our name and ‘A’ quality in our product that will put ‘A’ smile on your face with every bite.” What even is that? The weakest attempt at marketing that I've ever encountered, but I LOVE IT.

They used to sell this family-sized cardboard tub of chips that was woefully discontinued and replaced with a resealable bag that I will begrudgingly admit is way more practical than a cardboard lid. But the people of Pennsylvania are still in mourning. The tub was even eulogized by one of the state’s largest media outlets.

Pennsylvania is not good at adjusting to change. Wilkes-Barre is still waiting for coal to make a comeback, for Christ’s sake.

I’m a mere admirer compared to the super-fan who turned an empty bag of barbecue chips into a Flat Stanley-type roaming anthropomorphized object, who so far has been to Prague, Joshua Tree, and Minneapolis to see the Eagles win the Super Bowl.

WNEP, the local ABC affiliate station, ran an actual news story when a bag of Middleswarth ended up on the counter in the background of an episode of Modern Family. That’s all. It’s just sitting there, blurry and un-remarked upon. But the locals lost. their. shit.

In the way that so many kids who grew up in small towns and moved away start to take on a sense of hometown pride they wouldn’t have been caught dead expressing at 16, I rep hard for NEPA as a twenty-something Brooklyn transplant.

My love for Middleswarth is basically just a manifestation of homesickness. But it’s a delicious one.