One potato, two potato.

• Position: What's New? Winter Gear & Food Fest - Potato chips - Brief Article

The days when potato chips were merely potato chips is becoming a distant memory. Today's chips come in all sorts of shapes and flavors, limited only by the imagination of the manufacturers.

Baked Potato Thins from William Poll, Inc., New York, departs from traditional chips in that they're baked, not fried. Slicing them wafer thin from Idaho potatoes, which are oblong rather than round, produces an elongated, flat surface, in contrast to the round, curly shape of most chips. The thinness ensures maximum crispness, so that they fairly snap when you bite them. Add in the intensity of the flavors--garlic, onion, rosemary, shallot & pepper, herbes de Provence, and a mouth-tingling jalapeno, in addition to original, which provides the traditional potato chip taste--and you have a novel treat ideal for nibbling. Just a few words of caution--they're habit-forming.

Terra Frites from The Hahn Celestial Group, Uniondale, N.Y., completely abandon the usual chip look. Instead, they assume the guise of french-fried...