eli5: Why do products that are essentially just “Corn, Oil, and Salt” (like Frito’s, Doritos, popcorn, Bugles, CornNuts, etc) taste SO different from each other?

Question

I get that they are “similar”, and use different corn types and manufacturing processes, but since the labels do not list any other added flavors or ingredients, shouldn’t they just all taste about the same? After all isn’t it just corn, oil and salt? Yet they are very different in flavor.

In: 58

Answer 1

Tortilla chips are made with nixtamalized corn, which has been processed with alkali. Fritos, however, are made with plain cornmeal. The alkali process changes a lot about how corn cooks, and also makes it more nutritious.

Different ways of processing and cooking the corn can also create different amounts of “toasted” flavor.