Everyone knows the dowdy potato snack, but reading a recent book on them has reignited a personal journey and taken my intake to hitherto unseen levels
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’m reading a book about the history of crisps. It’s by Natalie Whittle and it’s called Crunch. Unlike crisps, it’s nourishing – fascinating to learn of the human endeavour, all the science that’s gone into them. But, just like crisps, it’s also comforting – in that it’s good to know I’m not the only one with such strong feelings about them.
I once heard a fellow broadcaster denigrated as the kind of presenter who just wanted to do phone-ins about listeners’ favourite crisps. I knew where he was coming from. You could do a phone-in on this subject every day of the week and never run out of contributors. Because surely everyone has their own relationship with crisps, their own personal crisp journey.
My own started with being cruelly denied access to all but one flavour as a child. My mum had very strong views on artificial flavourings and “all that rubbish”, as she put it. So ready salted was all I knew. The memory of the moment I realised what I’d been missing out on is so clear that there is an almost palpable specificity to it.
