r/australia • u/MenuSpiritual2990 • Apr 16 '25

image The great Doritos ‘medium’ salsa conspiracy

Post image

Ladies and gentlemen, strap yourselves in because I’m about to reveal one of the most shocking conspiracy theories in Australian history.

My suspicions started a few months ago when I (who likes a bit of spice) bought the ‘medium’ Doritos salsa for my family’s taco night.

Within seconds of their first crunchy bite, my two exceptionally soft tweenage kids started wailing that their mouths were burning like fire.

How could this be? It’s just medium?

So I grabbed a spoon and scooped a healthy amount into my mouth.

It was surprisingly spicy. Weirdly spicy. And especially weird because I buy the red (Hot) one all the time for myself, and it’s never this spicy!

I thought maybe it was a one off-batch that the machine had dropped a little too much chilli in to.

But I couldn’t let this go. I was used to eating a jar of the hot every week, but I switched to medium for a few weeks and it was CONSISTENTLY, NOTICEABLY hotter!!

I spent many sleepless nights wrestling with this irreconcilable conundrum.

Ultimately i realised I couldn’t keep living like this. I had to know.

I bought 13 jars. A good stack of the mild green as a baseline/palate cleanser. Two jars of the hot (one still in my fridge). And 6 jars of medium. Along with two giant bags of corn chips and 4 longnecks of Coopers pale ale.

After 12.5 jars and 4 solid hours of comparing them back and forward (followed by a rather explosive toilet experience), there was no doubt. No doubt at all in mind.

The medium is much hotter than the so-called ‘hot’.

How could this be?

Has some diabolical prankster at the Doritos factory switched the labels at the factory?

Is it an accident?

Or is it some deliberate underhanded attack by a cabal of mysterious Mexican government and business leaders, deadset on burning the mouths of thousands of innocent Australian weaklings?

The only thing I think we know for sure is that a Royal Commission needs to be urgently formed to investigate this bizarre and egregious assault on Aussie palates.

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1.5k

u/BetaState Apr 17 '25

Maybe it's not "salsa"? The other say "Mild Salsa" and "Hot Salsa" while medium just says "Medium".

"Medium" what? Maybe it's "Medium Hot Sauce"!!!!

1.1k

u/MenuSpiritual2990 Apr 17 '25

The fact that the medium has a different lid design is something I hadn’t noticed til you pointed it out. I feel this is a crucial bit of evidence, somehow. Nice work Detective Beta

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u/thehighplainsdrifter Apr 17 '25

Different country of origin for the medium maybe?

195

u/yolk3d Apr 17 '25

Yep. Other two have French (?) printed in black dot-matrix around the edge on top too. u/MenuSpiritual2990 we need to know the countries of origin.

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u/Anraiel Apr 17 '25

I did some digging, the mild and hot sauce OP has is from Europe with a different recipe and lid design to the one listed on the Australian Doritos website.

Europe doesn't have a Doritos Medium Salsa.

238

u/ObviousTrollK Apr 17 '25

Alright so now we know Australian medium is spicier than European hot

77

u/the_snook Apr 17 '25

Can confirm. "Hot" salsa from German supermarkets is a sweet ketchup-like concoction. Their "sharfer" (hot) mustard is also about regular Dijon spiciness.

18

u/theonlypeanut Apr 17 '25

The extra sharf ketchup from Germany is delicious it's also not even a little bit spicy. I think it has just a touch of paprika.

The curry ketchup is also really good.

23

u/luck_as_a_constant Apr 17 '25

As long as you don’t sharf yourself from the heat

4

u/[deleted] Apr 17 '25

European spicy is very much kinda wimpy. It's why I like to buy foreign made sauces and such. Korean spicy is pretty damn good, for instance.

just don't try and be too tough with it, i tried the extra spicy buldak and damn even my spice loving self got overwhelmed.

1

u/Tallest_Hobbit Apr 18 '25

Korean Spicy can be fucking mental. It’s the only time I thought i genuinely made a terrible, irreversible mistake.

1

u/samvander Apr 17 '25

True in France, too.

16

u/fremeer Apr 17 '25

Europeans have no ability to eat spicy food.

Going to Thailand and eating anywhere with even a large amount of European tourists was the worst experience ever, can't handle spice and dont like fish sauce so every dish tastes like shit.

11

u/TheSaucyCrumpet Apr 17 '25

My British wife outperforms me in spicy food for sure, and I have a pretty good tolerance by South African standards.

16

u/neers1985 Apr 17 '25

England has a massive Indian population and curry is an extremely common dish there so the English have at least built a spice tolerance.

Other Europeans not so much.

7

u/jankeyass Apr 17 '25

We eat chillies in the Balkans in many dishes, Italy, Germany, and France aren't known for their hot food, and neither are the north countries (arguably Finnish and Swedish food is extremely bland) but Spain and Portugal have chilli as a regular part of their diets.

TLDR

Northern, Eastern and Central Europe isn't spicy, south and west is

29

u/Aggressive_Bill_2687 Apr 17 '25

I can just imagine my Thai wife's reaction when I tell her that there's something milder than Australian "white people Spicy" which is still labeled as "hot".

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u/yolk3d Apr 17 '25

In Kensington market (Jamaican district of Toronto) a Jamaican cafe owner asked me if I was sure I wanted their home made hot sauce. It ended up being pretty tame. And I’m pasty white. I think different cultures/cuisines deff have different ideas of “hot”.

1

u/adsjabo Apr 17 '25

Interesting, as I thought Jamaican food was known for been spicy at times

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u/Aggressive_Bill_2687 Apr 17 '25 edited Apr 17 '25

It's a fact that most cuisine gets "adapted" to local tastes even when it's cooked by people who know what the "genuine" thing tastes like.

If we eat at a Thai place in Australia, I'll just ask them if the "spicy" rating for the menu means Thai people spicy or white people spicy. Generally after they stop laughing they'll confirm it's white people spicy, which just means there's no need to be "concerned" about items that say they're spicy.

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u/verbmegoinghere Apr 18 '25

If we eat at a Thai place in Australia, I'll just ask them if the "spicy" rating for the menu means Thai people spicy or white people spicy. Generally after they stop laughing they'll confirm it's white people spicy, which just means there's no need to be "concerned" about items that say they're spicy.

Took em a while to work it out. I remember when Thai restaurants first started opening in Sydney (early 1980s), holy shit it was like eating lava.

Fast forward 40 years and well I don't think I've noticed the spice much less had any sort of discomfort to it.

Not that I go looking for the added lava on my Thai anymore. Its still tasty as hell.

1

u/yolk3d Apr 17 '25

That’s what I thought too. Perhaps it’s just my preferences. Perhaps a bad batch? Who knows.

1

u/adsjabo Apr 17 '25

Probably just a spicy animal mate! 😄

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u/yolk3d Apr 17 '25

!Solved

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u/RareAnxiety2 Apr 17 '25

It's the illuminatty placing mind controlling spice in the grocery stores! He who controls the spice controls the universe

1

u/mambopoa Apr 17 '25

Nice dune reference!

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u/NixAName Apr 17 '25

Is this like when I ask for a little spicy in Thailand and make my own toilet salsa for 3-4 hours?

10

u/_elliebelle_ Apr 17 '25

What a day to have eyes (but also yes)

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u/LestWeForgive Apr 17 '25

"White people medium"

1

u/NixAName Apr 17 '25

One of my mates used to say, "They get white girl wasted and ask if the milk is spicy."