Is it worth taking your chip selection seriously, I mean they’re just fried potato with flavouring, right? Cheap snacks with little culinary value. If you’re agreeing, go to the back of the class. We’ll have words later. The correct answer is that chip selection is of course a serious business, from the construction of the chip, it’s crispness, the balance of flavour. We took a random(ish) selection for a test drive.
We’ll put this one out of its misery quickly. And trust me there’s nothing as miserable as a bag of chips you just can’t finish. A tad soft, lacking crunch and for a chip, overpoweringly sweet. I wondered with this one if there’s ever been a bag of chips I couldn’t finish. Not to my memory, but here it is ladies and gent. A sad day.
A packaging stamp boasts “infused oil,” but we’d take this as a warning. The chip is essentially sound, a thumbs up on both thickness and crispness. But the rosemary oil is out of whack with the cheese and onion, a support act trying to steal the show, albeit off-key and with little success.
An outlier, in the same camp as say sweet potato chips, these chips are almost poppadom like. While spud based, they’re 14% chickpea flour, light and bubbled, formed in a factory process. We’re conflicted. Italian Supreme brings back memories of old school chip flavours and they’re, erm, suckable. Is this a good thing? Well, there’s a strange pleasure in reducing them to a mouthful of mush. Ok, maybe I’ve been spending too much time in the house this year. Let’s not speak of this again.
We recently rated Pringles for road trips. They did ok. But this stackable, snackable global behemoth troubles me when put up against their potato peers. Pringles are the McDonalds of the chip world. Standardised and processed, they’re a mix of water, potato powder and corn starch that have been rolled into a sheet, cut and fried. Now we all know chips, on the whole, come from a factory. But the irregular fold, twist and bubble of a chip, and the occasional unbroken whopper is part of the thrill of extreme chip eating (ok, perhaps just me again). You’re not getting that with Pringles and as such I’d put them mid-range.
When standard salt just won’t do, and sea salt doesn’t feel luxe enough, it has to be pink, right? There have been claims that pink salt is healthier, which is not quite proven. Mineral rich, perhaps. And well, this is a bag of chips, so let’s not go there. There is a difference in flavour (marginal we’d say). So it comes down to the chip for us, not the colour or geographic origin of the salt. Extra thick, a satisfyingly dense crunch, and a massive smack of the pink stuff. Yet, still no convinced. Murray River Pink Salt anyone?
“The original and the best,” if you are believing the marketing, and well, they’re not far wrong. Crinkle cut, old school cheese and onion hit, they pass all the main chip tests down to the dregs: salvaging every last crumb. Question is, do you favour the thumb and index finger crab grab or the tip and pour?
Hello old friend. Why do I love Tyrells so much? Australian made but first produced on a farm in Herefordshire back in old blighty, Tyrell’s have been my go-to premium chip, or crisps as they rightly say (don’t argue, you’ll lose), for years. But it’s not just snacky nostalgia that put these in the upper reaches. Each bag states the potato variety (Pike in this case) and the clincher: curl, crunch and bubble is supremely satisfying. Premium in every way. Flavour wise we’re talking bang on posh cheese and onion.
The underdog in a world of posh chips? There’s no subtlety, just that trademark Samboy hit. From a time when chips were chips and infused oil had no place near your favourite snack. Atomic tomato is just that: bold, eye popping and moreish. The only food that I’d actually like to see glow. And for extra feels (or snack history 101 depending on your age) hit YouTube for the 1990’s ads. We’re torn and as such we’re putting Samboy joint top with Tyrell’s. A Lady and the Tramp moment.
