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There’s a story I like (hate) to tell about the time I got caught in four hours of traffic on the way to JFK and almost missed my flight to New Delhi. I arrived at the airport so late that I couldn’t check luggage and ended up needing to buy a smaller suitcase from a pre-security kiosk. I figured it all out and eventually boarded my international flight with literally zero time to spare. Luckily, I’d packed light since I knew the trip would involve a lot of shopping. Unluckily, the four giant bags of Chex Mix I’d bought for my family (and to pad out my mostly empty suitcase) did not fit into my carry-on and were, regrettably, left behind.
I’d planned not to tell any of my relatives about my near miss with disaster, but I didn’t quite anticipate their disappointment when the Chex Mix didn’t arrive on schedule. I had to fess up, and my brother, who was flying out a few days later, was enlisted to bring the bags I had failed to produce. Although probably everyone else involved has forgotten this story, it wouldn’t be completely inaccurate to say I have been trying to make up for my transgression ever since.
Many immigrant families I know all have that one thing they bring their relatives when visiting from the U.S. For my grandmother in Delhi, it’s Chex Mix. She will put it out on the coffee table in her living room, where everyone gathers, in small bowls during teatime and anytime anyone needs a snack. Sometimes it’s nestled between plates of dhokla, sweet mithai, home-fried shoe-string potatoes, and other salty, crispy namkeen. Sometimes it’s a solo treat. It’s always beloved, but still, without fail, a week or so into a trip, someone will comment on how the best part of the mix is the rye chips, and everyone else will agree. We still eat all the rest of the mix, but you can definitely tell the rye chips are favored.
Since my grandmother is never far from my mind (nor are my familial wrongdoings), I think about this a lot. So when I was recently deep in the middle of an online grocery order and came across Gardetto’s Rye Chips, something sparked in my brain. Were these the rye chips my relatives loved? I promptly ordered a few bags to try and found them to be crunchy, garlicky, and delightful, an ideal snack situation. I think still there is something to be said for the mix: The cereals and pretzels allow the rye chips to really shine. (In fact, the garlic rye chips were originally a part of a snack mix from the brand Gardetto’s, a Chex Mix competitor now owned by the same company before becoming a stand-alone “special request” product in 2006.) But whenever I finally get to go back to India, I’ll be taking a bag of Gardetto’s rye chips too in the hopes that I make up for the snacks I once left behind.