heretical crisps

[Legs]

Salt and Rosemary.  That's where it's really at.

[ian]

Oh stop it. Rosemary on crisps! Stand back, I am about to have a Linda Blair moment.

[rogerzilla]

Rosemary always strikes me as an excellent way to ruin lamb.  You could get a similar effect by crumbling pot pourri onto pork.

[Kim]

Has anyone mentioned paprika crisps?  When I was a teenager, that was the only flavour you could get in Belgium.  I've no idea why.

[rogerzilla]

It's probably the ideal counterpoint to frites et mayonnaise.

[Canardly]

Has anyone mentioned paprika crisps?  When I was a teenager, that was the only flavour you could get in Belgium.  I've no idea why.

Cos all the artificial flavourings and colouring were banned. All the soft drinks were the same non colour in my day. How Paprika made the grade I dunno.

[Mrs Pingu]

I seem to remember the same in Germany. And when Lidl first appeared in the UK it was 1 flavour of pom bear crisps.

[spesh]

Probably heading into excommunication or auto-da-fé territory, but I quite liked the mango and chilli flavour crisps that Kettle Chips produced as a limited edition years ago. They did actually taste of mango as you started to chew on them, with the chilli warmth coming on as a slow burn.

[Jaded]

I seem to remember the same in Germany. And when Lidl first appeared in the UK it was 1 flavour of pom bear crisps.

For a short time I wondered what porn bear crisps were.

[Legs]

Rosemary always strikes me as an excellent way to ruin lamb.  You could get a similar effect by crumbling pot pourri onto pork.

Philistine!

[ElyDave]

 

Has anyone mentioned paprika crisps?  When I was a teenager, that was the only flavour you could get in Belgium.  I've no idea why.

strongly available in Germany as well

[Efrogwr]

Crisps should be finely sliced real potatoes fried in oil (i would prefer rapeseed, but sunflower is OK) and the eater should be provided with salt in order to season to taste.

Anything else is a vile abomination and should be stamped on with a firm hand.

[ian]

I seem to remember the same in Germany. And when Lidl first appeared in the UK it was 1 flavour of pom bear crisps.

For a short time I wondered what porn bear crisps were.

A couple of years back I was in Berlin with my wife, wandering down a side-street from Kurfürstendamm. Glancing at an unassuming and upmarket shop window, I noticed a teddy bear. Suspended there in the middle of the window with ropes. A teddy bear wearing made-to-measure leather bondage gear. And – pride of place – strapped to its furry loins was a very large black dildo. Quite oddly, I suppose, that was the last thing you noticed. It sort of pulled you in. Oh look, a teddy bear. It's dressed up, ha. Oh my.

That, in ian-Lore, is the Berlin Porn Bear.

On the same trip, we had dinner as guests at the Charlottenburg town hall, fantastic spread including a scale model of a pig made out of mince. Gotta love the Germans.

[geraldc]

Out in the Far East, it's all about deep fried fish skin. It's like an ultra thin pork scratching. For the flavouring, the standard flavouring is a powder made from salted duck egg yolks, sugar, chilli, curry leaves and sugar. They will hit the UK eventually. The thing is the cost, essentially it's a £10 bag of fancy crisps.

[Tigerrr]

My dad used to buy me a packet of smiths with the blue paper twist of salt, after doing penguins swimming class at Swindon pool in the early 60's. Sheer heaven. We weren't allowed Golden Wonder crisps because that's what the kids on the estate had, along with Tizer. We had Corona only on special occasions.
My bets friends Dad woudl only allow Corona in Dandelion and Burdock flavour - they were a religious family.
I used to imagine gangs of kids hanging out with their golden wonder flavoured crisps swigging from huge bottles of Tizer, and nicking stuff from Tescos. As soon as I could - that's exactly what I did too.

[ian]

Out in the Far East, it's all about deep fried fish skin. It's like an ultra thin pork scratching. For the flavouring, the standard flavouring is a powder made from salted duck egg yolks, sugar, chilli, curry leaves and sugar. They will hit the UK eventually. The thing is the cost, essentially it's a £10 bag of fancy crisps.

This is precisely the reason why I take a tuperware box of buttered bread and a bag of ready-salted crisps when I travel to China.

We also used to go crazy on Tizer and Golden Wonder as kids. We used to have the pop man come once a week with his toothsomely soon-be-toothless bounty of sugar and as yet unbanned amphetamine-grade food colourants. That was back in a more innocent time when your parents could go to the pub and leave you outside like a dog to find your own entertainment, or until the sugar rush had dissipated. Even if it was snowing. It was the pop man who used to bring me Grandcham, the most mythical of pops, only known apparently to my wife and I. It existed though because we're both sure and it was nectar.

[T42]

The shop beside my bus-stop in Belfast used to keep Tayto cheese and onion crisps warm in a biscuit tin.  I could never taste any cheese, though.

[Cudzoziemiec]

My dad used to buy me a packet of smiths with the blue paper twist of salt,

My favourite, without the salt. Though we were allowed Golden Wonder and Walkers too. In fact it's news to me that any of those brands was supposed to be in any way better than the others.

[ian]

Smiths were the best. You'd put all the salt from the packet on them and then get some more salt and add that too and then dowse the lot in vinegar.

Golden Wonder were council-estate crisps, Walkers were posh. I dreamed of living on a council estate (or I could go around my grans, they already lived on one). If I recall, there's were Tudor and Murphy(?) brand crisps too. And perhaps Burton. Actually, it was Burton that did the really weird crisps, erm [insert sound of thinking], potato puffs.

[Kim]

Smiths were the best. You'd put all the salt from the packet on them and then get some more salt and add that too and then dowse the lot in vinegar.

I was a weirdo who liked them because you could add a homeopathic amount of salt.  That and the adverts with the singing potato people.

[ian]

That's a bit wrongo, growing kids need their salt or they etiolate.

In the spirit of mythical childhood foodstuffs, was it really my imagination, or was there really a flavour of potato snack known as The Face's Hot Lips (after The Face from the A Team). Google doesn't seem to want to indulge me.

Missed a trick if there's also no BA Baracus's Fists Crisps.

You ain't going to get me to eat no other crisps, fool.

[TheLurker]

Whatever flavour they are it's an hell of an expensive way to buy potatoes.  If you're very, very, very bored work out the cost per tonne based on a "standard" 25g packet or if you wish to use old money the cost per ton at approx 9/10 oz per packet.

[Jaded]

My dad used to buy me a packet of smiths with the blue paper twist of salt, after doing penguins swimming class at Swindon pool in the early 60's. Sheer heaven.

I know it’s Swindon, but doing penguins is a bit dubious.

[Hot Flatus]

Did Swindon even exist in the 1960s? Does it exist now. Or is it all just a recurring bad dream...

[rogerzilla]

It's been shit since the 1950s at least, when they cleared a few London slums and dumped the occupants in the new "4Ps" council estates.

Fun local fact: when the no.17 bus ran between Park North and Penhill, the drivers called it the Jeremy Kyle Express.