Just for fun

I took this picture at a rest stop somewhere in Minnesota: Doritos in mustard, ketchup, and pickle flavors. I've never seen these in New York—or the taco pizza, baby back ribs or fried pickle ranch potato chips in the next aisle—so I had not realized how much American ingenuity goes into coming up with new kinds of junk food.

The highway convenience stores in the Midwest are quite an experience. Some of the bigger ones have a hundred different kinds of prepared food, as well as the packaged stuff, but even the smaller ones have an amazing variety of different flavors of chips, cookies, beef jerky and candy, while those of us hoping for something slightly healthier are limited to a few shriveled salads dying of loneliness at the far end of an aisle that might as well be labeled Afterthoughts.

I have been to 7-11's in Tokyo that had candy offerings in some truly unexpected flavors—and colors—and in the UK you can buy crisps (potato chips) in roast chicken or steak, ale and caramelised onion flavors, but I think the United States remains the undisputed junk food capital of the world.