Hello. I couldn't think of anything to write about today — at least not without threatening to be depressingly topical, which I'm keen to avoid — so I thought I'd fall back on something completely inoffensive and not at all controversial, which is my ranking of the regular-ass crisp flavours that you get in an average multipack.
For clarity, this means the following flavours:
- Ready salted
- Salt and vinegar
- Cheese and onion
- Roast chicken
- Prawn cocktail
- Smoky bacon
Now, the exact "goodness" of each of these varies according to manufacturer, but based on a sampling of two ends of the market — Walkers (a "prestige" brand of sorts) and Lidl "Snaktastic" own-brand — I feel pretty confident in my rankings. So let us begin immediately.
6. Cheese and onion
I will grant that I am biased in this regard, because I do not like onion or onion-flavoured things, but it continually mystifies me that this is, supposedly, the most popular crisp flavour in the United Kingdom, according to multiple surveys.
I wouldn't mind if it was a little bit cheesy, but I've decided to give these a chance on multiple occasions and simply cannot get past the revolting onion-ness of them, with the "cheese" part seemingly being totally overpowered by it.
By contrast, I absolutely love the sadly defunct beef and onion flavour crisps that Walkers used to do in the brown packets. Those, to me, didn't taste oniony at all, but the artificial beef flavour (which doesn't really taste like beef at all) came through perfectly well. But I don't think you can get those any more — I haven't seen them for a good while, anyway — so they're out of the rankings for now.
5. Ready salted
These may be ranked low on my list, but not because I don't like them; on the contrary, sometimes it's nice to have a simple salted flavour. They're just a bit dull though.
To my shame, on one occasion at primary school where I found I had a packet of ready salted crisps in my lunchbox, I became so inexplicably furious that I didn't have one of the "good" flavours that I crushed them angrily rather than eating them. I don't really know why I did that, and it's a memory I firmly wish I could eject from my long-term storage.
These days, I am not infuriated by ready salted crisps. But they are usually the last to go. Andie ranks them quite highly, though, so it's not as if they go to waste.
4. Smoky bacon
The next few are all a tough call to rank, as I specifically like all of them, but out of all of them, I think I'd probably put smoky bacon flavour at the bottom of the heap.
There's nothing wrong with smoky bacon and, like ready salted, the intense saltiness of the flavour is sometimes exactly what you're looking for in a crisp. But, when presented with an array of different crisp flavours to choose from, smoky bacon is rarely the one I reach for first.
3. Roast chicken
Likewise roast chicken. I rank this flavour slightly higher because it feels like you don't see these as often as you used to, and thus sometimes I will pick them as a "novelty" option.
There are also some truly excellent "luxury" roast chicken options available, with the one most people are likely familiar with being Walkers Sensations. To my recollection, the roast chicken flavour of these was the first to become widely available, and they are very good crisps.
They don't taste anything like chicken, of course, but very few crisp flavours do actually taste like their name — with the exception of ready salted and salt and vinegar, for obvious reasons.
2. Salt and vinegar
Salt and vinegar is one of my favourite crisp flavours. I particularly enjoy a strongly seasoned salt and vinegar crisp — the kind that is surprisingly, intensely sour. Regular old Walkers are decent in this regard, but I think the best salt and vinegar flavour outside of explicitly luxury brands like Kettle Chips is probably the Walkers Max ridged variants.
Crinkly crisps tend to have stronger flavours anyway, and when you have something that is already fairly pungent, like salt and vinegar, crinkling them and putting them on a thick crisp makes them even better.
It was a close-run thing between this and the top spot, I can tell you. But ultimately this is where the results fell.
1. Prawn cocktail
Another crisp flavour that has the dubious honour of not tasting anything like what it's supposed to, prawn cocktail crisps have always been, for me, the ultimate flavour. They combine everything I like about an artificial crisp flavour. You've got the saltiness. You've got the sourness of vinegar. You've got a touch of sweetness.
It all comes together to create a flavour that makes my mouth water to imagine. Prawn cocktail is an awesome flavour, regardless of what type of crisp it is applied to, and is pretty much always my top pick when given an array of different flavours to choose from.
So there you have it. Those are my rankings, and nothing you can do will change my mind. If you're lucky, I might rank some "unusual" flavours tomorrow!
Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.
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