The Sad Demise of the Humble Potato Crisp

I think the humble potato crisp (or chips as our American cousins so incorrectly refer to them) and our preference for them, is one of those things that gets imbedded at a very early age. Your favourite brand of crips is, as with chocolate and beer, an accident of birth, location and upbringing.

A Pile of The Real McCoy’s Potato Chips (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Back in my day there were just two key brands – the mighty Walkers of the mighty Midlands, and, Golden Wonder as eaten by Soft Southerners.

Oh, and there was the occasional Smiths Crisps but I think that only came in the one flavour – salted. Not ready salted. Just salted. To get them salted you had to find a little blue triangular package contained within the bag, which contained salt which you could sprinkle to your own liking.

Now, clearly, the King of crisps is, and always has been, Walkers Cheese and Onion. It remains the best even after changing the bag, changing the recipe, and reducing nearly all trace of salt, fat, cheese, onion and potato………and, in spite of Gary Lineker…..

It remains the closest thing to the original crisp of my childhood – a bag of cheese and onion and drinking Coke from a glass bottle through a striped paper straw was my idea of heaven. And, if you replace the Coke with a pint of real ale then I remain a happy man today.

You can keep your ribbed (sounds like a sex aid), crinkles, lites, and baked. You can keep your Pringles, your Kettle Crisps, your vegetable or fruit crisps and those foreign impostors – the Doritos.

For me, your original Walkers cheese and onion remains a slice of Heaven with no rival……except maybe for a cheesey Wotsits………or a Mini Cheddar……

I feel the munchies coming on!