Yet Another Cycling Forum

Off Topic => The Pub => Food & Drink => Topic started by: ian on 14 January, 2020, 06:22:37 pm

Title: heretical crisps
Post by: ian on 14 January, 2020, 06:22:37 pm
So, I was, as I do, reading an article in the Guardian this morning about crisps. (https://www.theguardian.com/food/2020/jan/14/so-long-salt-and-vinegar-how-crisp-flavours-went-from-simple-to-sensational) Crisps, of course, are better than Jesus (and you even get crisps shaped like Jesus, which is a proper miracle) but they're better than most things. After a couple of days illness, I prepared a 'ready salted' crisp sandwich last night. Oh my. I always wonder why I bother to eat anything else. Other than the fact that I'd die from malnutrition, of course.

I was pleased to note that I'm not singular in continuing my childhood passion of self-vingaring* ready salted crisps for the ultimate salt n vinegar hit. The salty, potato, vinegary slush the resides at the end of the pack is ambrosial. Scoop it out with your fingers tips, it's like a kaleidoscope of flavour for your tongue.

But after that, a slow horror set in. I knew they'd danced with all manners of new flavours, in the hope that novelty will somehow achieve something (like were people not buying crisps because no one had made 'donkey and banana' flavour yet?) but really, strawberry? Truffled cheese and a splash of sparkling wine? Raspberry bellini? What the actual fuck. Modern consumers apparently want to go on a 'food adventure.' I'd take them on a food adventure, all right.

I myself am partial to plain crisps, the proper 'ready salted' real deal. Nothing fancy. No bloody ridges or that nonsense, no oven baking, just plain potato, sliced and fried till they're – well – crisp. And don't give me any of that 'lightly salted' nonsense either – anaemic travesties of actual 'ready salted' crisps. They need salt, that's the point. If you're that worried about your health you shouldn't be eating crisps. Here, give them to me.

At a push I'll go for 'cheese and onion', and if I want to push out the boat and maybe I'm trying to impress, 'smoky bacon.' I've not had 'roast chicken' for ages and I always found 'prawn cocktail' a bit too exotic for my taste. Really, just stop showing off. 'Roast beef?' It doesn't matter the brand, they're always minging.

There are other potato snacks, but proper crisps are where it's at.

*Grandma Grammarly wants to replace this with 'self-fingering.'
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: Paul on 14 January, 2020, 07:46:35 pm
I flirted with the idea of holy crisps once. I wanted to offer the faithful an alternative to the standard water.
I was going to call the company The Flavier Saviour Co. I didn’t get very far with the flavours though. There was: Pillars of Salt; Roast Cherub; Salt and Virgin.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 14 January, 2020, 07:53:03 pm
The best crisps IMO all involve something vinegary:
Salt & vinegar
Pickled Onion (monster munch)
Roast beef and mustard (I'd be happy if they held the beef and just made mustard crisps).
At a push Lime Doritos.

All other crisp flavours are mostly bogging.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: ian on 14 January, 2020, 08:05:49 pm
No beef! Mustard fine.

I had some ham and mustard once, a bit meh. Smoky bacon is peak porcine when it comes to crisps.

On the supernatural snacks front, I'm surprised there's not been ectoplasm favour crisps.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 14 January, 2020, 08:14:10 pm
I don't normally like meaty crisps but the Brannigans RB&M mostly taste like mustard :)

Has anyone invented wasabi crisps yet? I'd prolly like those.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: Andy64 on 14 January, 2020, 08:23:59 pm
All crisp "sell by" dates fall on a Saturday
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: rr on 15 January, 2020, 12:55:37 am



Has anyone invented wasabi crisps yet? I'd prolly like those.

Yes, seen in French supermarkets and occasionally Aldi

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Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: PaulF on 15 January, 2020, 04:58:32 am
RadMac have a “crisps on the radio” slot on their weekend show where they review exotic flavoured crisps.

Works exactly how you would expect it to work
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: ian on 15 January, 2020, 09:56:08 am
Isn't wasabi just well-travelled horseradish? Japan, dear, you really, really must go. They should call it unicornradish.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: Ham on 15 January, 2020, 10:15:01 am
There is an BA(Crsp) version of crisp flavouring, building on Ian's A Level vinegaring.

That is, take your pack of plain crisps and liberally (conservatives not permitted to carry out this action) sprinkle Worcesesester Sauce over.

Awesomeness. And fun to do in a pub where you ask for  a bag of plain crisps and the Worcesesesester sauce bottle and proceed to educate the yoof behind the bar in Total Awesomeness.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: T42 on 15 January, 2020, 10:39:23 am
Not to mention the BA(CRISPR-Cas9) version that Greenpeace is trying to get banned.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: L CC on 15 January, 2020, 10:51:53 am


There is an BA(Crsp) version of crisp flavouring, building on Ian's A Level vinegaring.

That is, take your pack of plain crisps and liberally (conservatives not permitted to carry out this action) sprinkle Worcesesester Sauce over.

Awesomesauce . And fun to do in a pub where you ask for  a bag of plain crisps and the Worcesesesester sauce bottle and proceed to educate the yoof behind the bar in Total Awesomeness.
FTFY.

I don't eat crisps. I eat pork scratchings. Ideally with mustard (https://www.snafflingpig.co.uk/products/mighty-colmans-mustard-pork-crackling-packets). Take that for max porcine snackery.

Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: ian on 15 January, 2020, 10:57:27 am
Yes, Worcester sauce would work well.

Worcester is one of those words that if you look it at really hard it starts to look wronger. There's a name for this phenomenon but I forget it.

Of course, the Americans struggle with Worcester even if they don't stare at it. The one in Massachusetts is sort of right, it varies between a Wooooo-ster and Wuh-ster depending on the depth of your Mass accent.

They'd probably frown if you asked for Wuh-ster sauce on your potato chips though.

I can't eat pork scratchings. It's just big hunks of pig dandruff. Ugh.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: Ben T on 15 January, 2020, 10:59:06 am
So, I was, as I do, reading an article in the Guardian this morning about crisps. (https://www.theguardian.com/food/2020/jan/14/so-long-salt-and-vinegar-how-crisp-flavours-went-from-simple-to-sensational) Crisps, of course, are better than Jesus (and you even get crisps shaped like Jesus, which is a proper miracle) but they're better than most things. After a couple of days illness, I prepared a 'ready salted' crisp sandwich last night. Oh my. I always wonder why I bother to eat anything else. Other than the fact that I'd die from malnutrition, of course.

I was pleased to note that I'm not singular in continuing my childhood passion of self-vingaring* ready salted crisps for the ultimate salt n vinegar hit. The salty, potato, vinegary slush the resides at the end of the pack is ambrosial. Scoop it out with your fingers tips, it's like a kaleidoscope of flavour for your tongue.

But after that, a slow horror set in. I knew they'd danced with all manners of new flavours, in the hope that novelty will somehow achieve something (like were people not buying crisps because no one had made 'donkey and banana' flavour yet?) but really, strawberry? Truffled cheese and a splash of sparkling wine? Raspberry bellini? What the actual fuck. Modern consumers apparently want to go on a 'food adventure.' I'd take them on a food adventure, all right.


Ah that's where you were going wrong you see, were they just plain common or garden salt? You should have gone for sea salt, it's far superior to normal salt.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: rogerzilla on 15 January, 2020, 10:59:44 am
The real heresy is Wankers Walkers putting cheese and onion in a BLUE packet and salt 'n' vinegar in a GREEN packet, when it should be, and always was, the other way around.  Now other crisp makers are copying Walkers.  This is a last-days-of-the-Roman-Empire level of depravity.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: Ham on 15 January, 2020, 11:20:04 am

Worcester is one of those words that if you look it at really hard it starts to look wronger. There's a name for this phenomenon but I forget it.


It's one of those words easy to start spelling but difficult to stop, wasn't Pooh the first to observe this phenomenomenon? Poohetic would be appropriate, then.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: ian on 15 January, 2020, 11:55:29 am
That might work. I think more properly, it's semantic satiation. The danger of thinking too much about something that you wear it out.

Oh, fancy salt, that narks me something rotten, that does. They're crisps. They don't demand fancy. You're not taking them out on a date, they're not going to invite you to stay the night They don't need impressing.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: Kim on 15 January, 2020, 01:10:12 pm
The real heresy is Wankers Walkers putting cheese and onion in a BLUE packet and salt 'n' vinegar in a GREEN packet, when it should be, and always was, the other way around.  Now other crisp makers are copying Walkers.  This is a last-days-of-the-Roman-Empire level of depravity.

I'm not one for colour-coding, but absolutely this.  Blue is the colour of sore fingers, green is the colour of cheesy nausea.  Anything else is just wrong.

Walkers get extra merit for frying their crisps in triffid oil, which not only has an unpleasant aftertaste, but will ultimately be responsible for the downfall of humanity[1].


[1] Except on the Isle of Wight.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: T42 on 15 January, 2020, 01:14:41 pm
I only eat crisps if there's nothing else going, but I'm rather fond of what the Germans call Erdnussflips (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erdnussflips), short thick worms made of cornmeal with a salty peanut coating.  I once spent a weekend in a company flat in Frankfurt with nothing for Sunday breakfast but a bumper packet the last inmate had left behind, and no way of making coffee. Oh, and a hangover.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: ian on 15 January, 2020, 01:49:12 pm
It's a well-known fact that the fall of humanity will happen three decades late on the IoW, to allow for the time needed to catch up with the rest of humanity.

Not sure about the crisp packet colour thing, I think it might be indicative that we're just the centre of an enclosed experiment run by aliens. They change variables and watch what happens. A lot more of the modern world makes sense if you accept The Alien Experiment Contention (this is what I call it when I meet people at parties).
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: nicknack on 15 January, 2020, 05:29:07 pm
There is an BA(Crsp) version of crisp flavouring, building on Ian's A Level vinegaring.

That is, take your pack of plain crisps and liberally (conservatives not permitted to carry out this action) sprinkle Worcesesester Sauce over.

Awesomeness. And fun to do in a pub where you ask for  a bag of plain crisps and the Worcesesesester sauce bottle and proceed to educate the yoof behind the bar in Total Awesomeness.
Yes, but you have to drop a pickled egg in there first.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: ian on 15 January, 2020, 05:53:03 pm
That's an instant scotch egg. Take one picked egg, one bag of smoky bacon crisps, eat two-thirds of the crisps, crush the rest, drop your still vinegary egg in the bag with crushed crisps, shake about. Et voilà, instant scotch egg.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: ElyDave on 15 January, 2020, 08:20:44 pm
I only eat crisps if there's nothing else going, but I'm rather fond of what the Germans call Erdnussflips (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erdnussflips), short thick worms made of cornmeal with a salty peanut coating.  I once spent a weekend in a company flat in Frankfurt with nothing for Sunday breakfast but a bumper packet the last inmate had left behind, and no way of making coffee. Oh, and a hangover.

You are an example of the depravity of the modern crisp eater.  I disdained the erdnus flip whilst living in germany, my sister ate them and she grew up to be an accountant :P

It's ready salted all the way, though in Germany paprika is also acceptable. But peanut butter flavoured crisps  ::-)
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: perpetual dan on 15 January, 2020, 08:32:18 pm
I remember being quite partial to tomato flavour in the 90s. These days is salted or chilli for me.

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Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: rogerzilla on 15 January, 2020, 08:38:43 pm
In Austria you can buy horseradish crisps (Kren - one of an incredibly small number of uniquely Austrian words).  They're rather nice,
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: Legs on 15 January, 2020, 08:47:19 pm
Salt and Rosemary.  That's where it's really at. :thumbsup:
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: ian on 15 January, 2020, 08:53:21 pm
Oh stop it. Rosemary on crisps! Stand back, I am about to have a Linda Blair moment.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: rogerzilla on 15 January, 2020, 09:23:52 pm
Rosemary always strikes me as an excellent way to ruin lamb.  You could get a similar effect by crumbling pot pourri onto pork.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: Kim on 15 January, 2020, 09:45:06 pm
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.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: rogerzilla on 15 January, 2020, 09:50:17 pm
It's probably the ideal counterpoint to frites et mayonnaise.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: Canardly on 15 January, 2020, 09:55:12 pm
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.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 15 January, 2020, 09:58:48 pm
I seem to remember the same in Germany. And when Lidl first appeared in the UK it was 1 flavour of pom bear crisps.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: spesh on 15 January, 2020, 10:02:45 pm
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.

Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: Jaded on 15 January, 2020, 11:16:29 pm
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.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: Legs on 16 January, 2020, 06:33:23 am
Rosemary always strikes me as an excellent way to ruin lamb.  You could get a similar effect by crumbling pot pourri onto pork.
Philistine!
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: ElyDave on 16 January, 2020, 06:57:42 am
 
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.
:thumbsup:

strongly available in Germany as well
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: Efrogwr on 16 January, 2020, 10:47:56 am
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.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: ian on 16 January, 2020, 11:21:55 am
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.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: geraldc on 16 January, 2020, 08:09:51 pm
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.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: Tigerrr on 17 January, 2020, 02:10:29 pm
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.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: ian on 17 January, 2020, 02:21:21 pm
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.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: T42 on 17 January, 2020, 02:43:38 pm
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.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 January, 2020, 06:19:09 pm
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.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: ian on 17 January, 2020, 06:42:57 pm
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.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: Kim on 17 January, 2020, 08:11:21 pm
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.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: ian on 17 January, 2020, 08:46:12 pm
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.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: TheLurker on 17 January, 2020, 09:01:40 pm
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.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: Jaded on 17 January, 2020, 09:34:15 pm
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.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: Hot Flatus on 18 January, 2020, 06:48:44 am
Did Swindon even exist in the 1960s? Does it exist now. Or is it all just a recurring bad dream...
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: rogerzilla on 18 January, 2020, 07:33:57 am
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.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: Mr Larrington on 18 January, 2020, 02:47:32 pm
The thing Inrecall about Tudor crisssssssps was the sternly-worded warning on the cardboard boxes the packets lived in prior to being nommed by starving pupils of st custards, viz.

STRONG LIGHT CAUSES RANCIDITY
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: ElyDave on 18 January, 2020, 06:35:07 pm
did my bit to restore crisporthodoxy today with a nice packet of ready salted after the audax
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: Efrogwr on 19 January, 2020, 12:32:48 pm
did my bit to restore crisporthodoxy today with a nice packet of ready salted after the audax

Stout fellow. Well done.
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 31 January, 2020, 08:34:51 am
Peak hipster!

Crisps in Vancouver:  Lime and chilli flavour - fried in avocado oil
Title: Re: heretical crisps
Post by: Legs on 31 January, 2020, 10:14:25 am
Had a pack of Walkers cheese & onion yesterday.  I'd forgotten how good the simple flavours are...