Way more about crisps

Packages of Walkers crisps and Walkers short bread are my usual snacks while in London. Bland palate so no prawn crisps or salt and vinegar or cheese onion or bacon. Plain!

Works great in the meal deal stores offer.

I’m sure you know Claudia but for others the two Walkers you mention are completely different companies.

I can’t argue with the article’s contention that crisps are our real national dish.

For me the King of crisps is Lancashire Crisps’ Lancashire Sauce flavour. They are made on a farm about 200 yards from where I spent the first 7 years of my life, so I might be a bit biased.

@CrispsOfBritain on Twitter reviews all the most obscure flavours of crisp

Brannigan's Roast Beef and Mustard flavour was the best and very much missed.

Salt and Vinegar should be in a blue bag and cheese and onion in a green bag despite what Walkers think.

Ready Salted crisps make an acceptable spanish omelette
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/videos/boss-the-basics-spanish-omelette-video

and we know how to share them.
https://www.thepoke.com/2023/06/12/this-americans-delight-at-brits-sharing-crisps-in-the-pub-is-todays-loveliest-thing/

Yes i love crisps

Johnew52 … Had no clue about 2 different companies named Walker. Thanks for the intel.
Just ate a small bag of crisps/potato chips here in the Land of La. Original Ruffles. Mid day snack.

As mentioned in the article Walkers crisps started as a sideline for Walkers pork butchers, and their pork pies are still around although they stopped being the same company in the early 1970s (the crisps were sold to Nabisco). So that is now three separate "Walkers" products, becoming quite a meal.

Two of the great traditional British crisp-consuming occasions are (a) the aforementioned meal deal and (b) the communal pub bag.

Before all this nonsense about eating evening meals in pubs ;-) the traditional after-work drink consisted of a bunch of office mates going for “a” drink. Several rounds later, it would occur to someone that some food might be a good idea to soak up the booze. Often the only food available in a pub in the evenings would be crisps so you’d buy a few bags, open them up so the crisps are easily accessible and place them in the centre of the table. Hence the “two pints of lager and a packet of crisps please” mentioned in the article.

And then of course by the time you leave the pub after last orders, you’ve still not had an actual meal and the only thing open is the kebab shop. But that’s another story.

We loved all of the crisps that we tried on our recent visit to London. They tasted, well, crispier than most of the chips we get in the US. My kids even loved the Walkers shrimp cocktail crisps once I tried them first and let them know that there was really no seafood flavor to them. My favorites were the paprika crisps from maybe M&S? So good.

Claudia - the Walkers company that makes the crisps has for some time been owned by the not very traditional Pepsico. Walkers of shortbread fame on the other hand are still a family business in Aberlour in Scotland set up in 1898 and still owned by the Walker family. https://www.walkersshortbread.com/about-walkers/

I haven't recently seen a fav winter crisp - what I call Christmas Dinner Crisp - Turkey and Stuffing. I used to sell them by the box-full.

Thanks Johnew52 for the intel.

If you like a plain crisp I strongly recommend M&S Ready Salted Potato Sticks.
I can't have them in the house!

My favourite crisp flavour was “Roast Ox Flavour “. I always wondered how many packets they got per ox.

You might like potato sticks Emma, but as the article points out right at the bottom, they are not crisps!

I will not be challenged on my knowledge and connoisseurship of crisps!:-)

Potato sticks are exactly the same as crisps fried and salted potatoes, not the same as the very inferior corn/potato based stick snacks.

I'm very much with you on the inferiority of corn based snacks Emma. I have this argument with my daughter-in-law all the time, especially when she is doing her annual Crispmas advent calendar - a different bag every day, many from around the world these days.

The UK has a proud history of corn-based snacks too. Wotsits, Monster Munch, Space Raiders, Nik-Naks etc.

proud?

Yes, proud. I am proud of Monster Munch and its place in UK culture.

[especially pickled onion flavour]

I will accept Frazzles, but Monster Munch are overrated….

Enjoyed the article, but even more the discussion and explanations here!

I will accept Frazzles, but Monster Munch are overrated….

Heathen!

For me, nothing beats Tayto cheese and onion...but then again, those are Irish. ;-)

Rosemary potato chips/crisps I had in Vienna were so amazing. I hoped to find them in the UK this year but alas, no…..

They are my downfall, even plain old Lays, so I never buy them unless we are camping.

Agree that Tayto cheese and onion are very good (and even better when purchased from the Tayto Castle outside Belfast City Airport). My favourite crisps are Kettle Crisps (cheese and onion). Piper's and Kent Crisps are also quite good. People from the US visiting the UK may notice that Walker's crisps have the exact same branding as Lay's, which is because as mentioned above they are both owned by PepsiCo. I believe they are actually the same product tho here we have a different variety of flavours. I don't care much for the regular Walker's but Walker's Sensations (especially Thai Sweet Chilli) are very good. But, this is a very personal question- many people love salt and vinegar but I can't enjoy anything with that much vinegar on it.

A novel I was recently reading was set in Britain. It introduced me to a crisp sandwich - I can't quite imagine!

A novel I was recently reading was set in Britain. It introduced me to a crisp sandwich - I can't quite imagine!

A crisp sandwich is sublime simplicity and is greater than the sum of it's parts. However it has to be white bread and a good amount of butter. It's not going to win any nutritional prizes but as an occasional guilty treat it's fine.

For me, nothing beats Tayto cheese and onion...but then again, those are Irish. ;-)

I found Tayto crisps quite disappointing, both the Irish and Northern Irish versions. They were very thin and lacked a decent crispness. Walkers are a much better crisp in comparison.

I’m not a fan of a crisp sandwich, too messy, too many bits, but crisps in sandwiches definitely.
Ham sandwich with salt and vinegar
Coronation chicken or prawn mayo with ready salted
At the end of a trip with friends when we were eating up all the food, we discovered cream cheese with chilli kettle chips - creamy, crunchy, sweet, salty, heat- delicious.

If you want to experience true British crisp insanity I recommend a trip to a supermarket crisp aisle in the run up to Christmas. Winter Berries and Prosecco crisps with edible gold stars anyone? Yes we bought them, yes they were pretty grim.

The addition of a few crisps to an M&S prawn sandwich really improves the experience. It’s a bit lacking in texture otherwise.

I agree with esteemed crisp author Natalie Whittle that non potato based snacks belong in the crisp category. Would be sheer madness not to. What would you call monster munch or cheese puffs if not crisps? They are consumed in exactly the same way as potato crisps and inhabit the same place in the culture.

A little shift in the discussion. On our RS trips on the continent when we stop at a rest stop I always check out the can chips aisle. In Italy once found two aisles devoted to canned chips. Last year in France there were pringle type chips with holes in them for eyes and a mouth to make them look like a face. The variety and flavors in Europe blows my mind compared to what we have in the US.

We are taking the Best of England tour in a month and I am wondering if we will stop at rest stops in England and if so what/if any types canned chips I will find there.

The only canned crisps I'm aware of here are Pringles, which you have in the US, tho there will probably be a wider variety of flavours here.

Pringles will probably be the only ones you will see on your travels. I think that Smoky Bacon would be a good flavour to try, I'm guessing they don't have that in the US?

Some of the other British contributors on here will hopefully be able to confirm but are Discos similar to Pringles in texture etc? In my mind they are? I haven't had a pack since about 1984. Always a disappointment in a packed lunch, I was surprised they still make them.

In some of the more gourmet ranges you can also get 'real' crisps in a can. I was given some from Yorkshire Crisps in a gift bag, they were pretty good.

A huge prawn lover, I always found prawn & mayo sandwiches to lack texture.....thank you for the brilliant solution of adding crisps...why didn't I think of this before??

Had no clue about 2 different companies named Walker

Good friends with the Walker brothers...Johnny, Blackie and Red.

"Good friends with the Walker brothers...Johnny, Blackie and Red." - And Gary Leeds, Scott Engel and John Maus.

Ha, Nigella Lawson making money from crisp sandwiches. I spent alot of time as a youth and young man in England between about 72 and 81. Crisp sandwiches or toast was our go-to after one too many, especially enjoyable watching a Vincent Price film. Mad Vince, those were the days.

Nigel, smiled at your comment. Trader Joe’s sells Thanksgiving Stuffing kettle chips each November. They’re a favorite of mine!

I hadn’t realized there were two Taytos - as with two Irelands

And as Cat VH says, Walker’s and Lay’s share the same branding, with the name in white lettering on a red banner that’s spread in front of a yellow circle.

But Kettle crisps/chips - and I’ve mentioned this on at least two previous threads on this Forum - although the bags on either side of the Atlantic share the same name and the exact same font, they are not the same product. U.S. Kettle Chips are thick and have a harder, crunchier texture. When I got a bag in England a few years ago, they were thin and brittle, like classic Lay’s, and not what phred’s article describes as the “posh” thick crisps.

Last night, I opened one of the bags of rippled chips (store brand, on sale, not a name-brand) that I’d purchased earlier in the day. With a smallish bowl of dip I made, I sat down to enjoy a few. I almost polished off the entire half-pond bag in one sitting. Empty calories, yes, but also crunchy and delicious. The chips were simply salted, but the all-natural flavor came from the dip, nothing artificial.

Recipe, if anyone’s interested:

Spoon sour cream (or cream cheese or cottage cheese) into bowl. Let’s say 2/3 cup (160 ml) to start - adjust amount as needed. Add a couple of tablespoons of ketchup, and a teaspoon or two of Worcestershire sauce, and mix. Dip away!

It’s quick to make, and sublime. I wonder if any of the British crisps companies have had that as a flavor, with the veritable millions that have been offered over the decades?

The original British flavoured crisps are "shake 'n' salt" which are still surprisingly sold by Walkers, which comes with a small sachet of salt that is added to the bag of crisps before shaking to distribute the salt as the name suggests. They were 1st sold by Smiths, but today's version is not not the quite the same experience, as those sold by Smiths had a little blue twist bulb bag that contained the salt and a grease proof bag.

Cyn, that sounds like ‘Marie Rose’ or prawn cocktail sauce, so prawn cocktail crisps would probably taste similar.

I’m going to disagree about British kettle chips. They might not be as thick as the American version but they are definitely thicker and crunchier than a ‘normal’ British crisp.

The English seem to be very proud of their potato chips (the proper term), but they're all inferior to Miss Vickie's and Zapp's. The former is a brand that originated in Canada; the latter originated in New Orleans. They're now fried up by Frito-Lay and Utz, respectively.

Pete Mckee a fanstastic graphic art guy in Sheffield just did an " srt" thing up at Weston Park...100 Crisp Sandwiches, its likely on youtube or his insta.Great bloke Pete

Thanks to Amazon Prime membership I’m now the proud owner of a case of Ruffles original potato chips. The size of the ones you pack with a school lunch.

It’s 8:18am PST so I’m noshing on crunchy potato chips ( crisps ) whilst enjoying my morning coffee.

I’m so proud.

Claudia, enjoy those rrrrrrrrrrridges!

The store-brand chips I bought come in “rippled” and “wavy.” They’re the same thing, just different names on the packages, next to each other on the shelf, and approximating Wavy Lay’s.

Ruffles are, of course, an entirely different thing.

Emma, I’m glad that “Kettle” means thicker and crunchier in the UK, too. There’s certainly a time and place for thinner, crispier crisps, but sometimes a stiffer Kettle chip is called for. I was disappointed to get a bag a few years ago in London, and find the contents to not meet the Kettle criteria. Maybe it was just that bag, or maybe things are different these days.

So, would anybody having a Crisp Sandwich (crisp butty?) follow up with a fried Mars bar for desert?

Cyn, a crisp sandwich followed by a deep fried Mars would be ridiculous and impractical! :-) crisp sandwiches are made at home, deep fried Mars bars are from the chippie!

You COULD get a Chip Barm from the chippie before the Mars bar. A heavily butter bread roll filled with chips, delicious. Called others things elsewhere in the country. There have been academic theses done on regional variations in what we call bread rolls in the UK. When I was growing up chippies also sold scallop barms ( no seafood involved). A thick sliced of battered fried potato in the bread, triple carbs what’s not to like?!

If you want the deep fried Mars bar experience at home after your crisp sandwich you could make a Mars bar toastie/breville. Sliced Mars between two slices of bread cooked in the breville. I don’t think I have ever seen a breville in the US? Makes toasted sandwiches with sealed edges so the filling is kept in.
A Mars toastie is quite the experience! An internal temperature of the sun for the first couple of bites, followed by a rapidly solidifying sickly mess. Had a few as a student and not recommended.

The Walker's cookies we kept getting with our coffee/tea in the rooms in hotels and on the trains were really good. We get Walker's shortbread cookies here, but these were flavors (oat, salted caramel, chocolate, and one other I forget) and they really were tasty. I would save mine for a snack later and would dive into the backpack to grab them out mid-day and my dear husband, who is NOT sweets fan, would have snuck in at some point while I wasn't watching and ate the saved packages.

The only "crisps" we got were Walker's cheese and onion, I think? Similar to our sour cream and onion but not as strong and not as oily. I think they were from a pub or maybe a sandwich we got. I can't remember now. I did enjoy a trip down the "crisps" aisle in M&S and the other store that starts with a "W" (name escapes me) and the flavors were pretty adventurous. In American Lay's potato chips (I think the same company as Walkers), we get an adventurous flavor every Spring or around holidays but the rest of the year they are plain, bbq, sour cream and onion, and a sour cream and cheddar, I think for the most part. Not a lot of varied flavors that are like the ones I saw. But also, being in Texas, they have different flavors further north like in New York or Illinois, etc. than we get here in Texas

other store that starts with a "W"

Waitrose?