Relentless quest for flavor leaves us all burned to a crisp

A Different View with Dave O’Connell

Some visitors very generously brought us a hamper of goodies over the Christmas – and buried in the middle of the basket was a large packet of crisps.

Now, as someone partial to the odd packet – albeit in a smaller size normally – I quietly sequestered said snack and hid it from public eye and consumption, for singular enjoyment at a later time.

In other words I stole the crisps – but in fairness, someone else in the house took the bottle of wine, so it was honours even in the end.

Anyway, one evening the house was empty and it was time to unveil the tasty treat – only to find that these were no Taytos or Walkers.

They weren’t even cheese and onion or salt and vinegar – the flavour I’d been hiding for myself was hand-cooked sweet potato, beetroot and parsnip crisps. And for once, unfortunately, the crisps tasted exactly like they should.

In other words, if you’d been of a mind to thinly slice sweet potatoes, parsnips and beetroot, and fry them in vegetable oil, this is what you’d have ended up with – a snack that’s healthy and low in fat but completely at odds with what you’d expect from crisps.

Suffice to say that, three weeks later, all but about ten of these crisps are still in the packet, available to anyone who’d like to try them, but going slowly stale and soggy from a complete lack of interest.

Twenty years ago, if some snack guru suggested that combining parsnips, beetroot and sweet potato was the way forward for crisps, he or she would have been led away from the deep fat fryer by men in greasy white coats.

Back in the day, we had Tayto – cheese and onion, salt and vinegar or smokey bacon – and little else.

Sure, we had Perri and King and Rancheros and Snax and Chipsticks – a concoction so sticky that it superglued your teeth together in a way that not even Monster Munch could match – or a big bag of Johnny Onion Rings that left you with a smell that would bring a tear to anyone’s eye.

But then Walkers and Pringles came along and changed crisp culture forever; Pringles in their big tube that looked like a container of tennis balls, with sour cream and onion or whatever….and Walkers, with more bizarre flavours by the week.

Ranch Raccoon, Sizzling Steak Fajita, Beans on Toast, Chip Shop Chicken Curry, Chilli and Chocolate, Fish and Chips, Builder’s Breakfast, Lamb Curry, Roast Turkey and Stuffing….even Irish Stew.

Even if they were special edition offerings that only lasted a few weeks, they put your old traditional cheese and onion crisps into the ha’penny place.

Suddenly this old snack standard was a gourmet treat in a bag, with a host of specialist companies hand carving and individually frying these thinly sliced slivers of spud and charging a euro or more for a packet.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.