Crisp Madness

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this on the blog before, but the British folks over here seem to be crazy about potato chips. They're called 'crisps' over here, but their differences to American potato chips go way beyond just names. In the states, it's pretty common to run across the occasional flavored potato chip. Bbq, sour cream & chive, cheese, and salt and vinegar... The usual suspects. Nothing too bizarre.

On principle, I'm not opposed to flavored potato chips. For example, Jay's makes a fiery hot & spicy flavor that I totally love. My friend Kristy Kallback in high school had a stepdad named Walt that drove a delivery truck for Jay's, and her cupboard was always stuffed full of those things. We ate them until our fingers were semi-permanently stained red.

So, there are certain flavors that I expect to see on a potato chip bag. But, it's as if the British have made crisp flavoring into some sort of Fear Factor-esque dare. I'm a fairly adventurous eater, but the flavors of British crisps travel waaaay outside of my comfort zone. The flavor choices are much more varied, and much more bizarre than what I'm used to. Here's a list of some of the crisp flavors that we've sampled the past few weeks:

Italian Spaghetti Bolognese
Spanish Chicken Paella
French Garlic Baguette
BBQ Kangaroo
Sweet Chutney
Teriyaki Chicken
Worchester Sauce
Roasted Chicken
Extreme Wasabi

And those are just the flavors that we've actually tried. Some of the other crisp flavor options include:

Indian Curry
Stilton and Cranberry
Prawn Cocktail
Texas Paprika
Chili and Chocolate
Onion Bhaji
Crispy Duck
Tomato Ketchup
Baked Bean
Marmite
Cajun Squirrel (for real)

I think it's fascinating that some of these flavors have made it to store shelves. Some of them are just so... disgusting. But, I have three more serious beefs with the whole British flavored crisp obsession:

1) I actually like plain potato chips. Weirdly, they're next to impossible to find at the store.

2) The abundance of flavored crisps wouldn't bother me if I actually had some other choice for a snack treat. But the only salty snacks that seem to be at the store are crisps. It's really odd. If I go into a grocery store and walk down the snack aisle, it's 90% devoted to crisps. The entire length of the aisle (and we're talking about a big aise) is almost all crisps. They're unavoidable. When Mark was visiting, we searched two different grocery stores for pretzels and popcorn, but only found two choices: One bag of assorted flavored pretzels, and one box of plain microwave popcorn. It's as if they like a variety of choices when it comes to crisp flavors, but don't need any sort of choices outside of crisps.

3) Most of the flavored crisps are honestly kind of gross. It's as if they just make one kind of crisp and then dust it with all kinds of different flavored powders. The flavor isn't really a part of the crisp, it's just powdered on. The powder gets all over your hands, and, if you make the mistake of breating in while trying to eat a paticularly powdery crisp, in your lungs. Not good.

It's just one of those wacky cultural differences. I don't think I'll be nostalgic for the bizarrely-flavored crisps once I'm back home. (Well...Maybe the worchester sauce crisps. They're actually not too bad.)