What did you learn today? I learned nothin'

[venta]

As a special seasonal thing, M&S are selling turkey, cranberry and stuffing-flavoured crisps. I tried them in November or so. They're fine. They taste like generic savoury-flavoured crisps.

They're also doing port and stilton-flavoured crisps. I...

Well. I don't really like flavoured crisps all that much. And cheese-flavoured things are invariably disastrous. Port and stilton crisps are clearly going to be disgusting.

But I was curious.

Not quite curious enough to buy some. But curious enough to persuade one of my colleagues to buy some. And then to steal one.

They are unbelievably disgusting.

(At least, according to me. They don't taste like port. They certainly don't taste like stilton. They don't even taste like cheese-flavoured crisps. They are bizarrely sweet. M'colleague, on the other hand, quite liked them.)

Comments

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

I really only like plain salted crisps. For some reason everything else is complicated and sweetened and what have you. Even something like salt-and-pepper isn't just salted crisps + pepper, it's got a whole load of stuff that makes it taste sticky somehow.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ditto. I tolerate some flavours, even go as far as liking some, but would probably always go for plain for preference.

I'm sure when I first encountered salt+pepper crisps[*] they were just basically crisps+salt+pepper but they're definitely getting odder.



[*] Jonathon Crisp, in the late 90s, IIRC.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

Paprika crisps are sometimes OK. But sometimes not, and I'd rather just put paprika on plain crisps.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Weirdly, it doesn't seem ever to have occurred to me that I could just put pepper on plain crisps... Wow!

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

This is cos we're victims of a culture that coerces us to see everything as a finished product. Or something.

[venta.livejournal.com]

It could be that. Or it could be that I just don't buy crisps much :)

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

It might also be that I'm a shameless autocondimentor ;)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ah. I am not. And it really weirds people out. When, in restaurants, people loom over you with giant pepper mills they find it really peculiar if you actually want to taste your food before deciding if you want extra pepper or not.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

I do tend to taste first. Then I add pepper. And chili. and lemon. and capers. and soy sauce. and garlic sauce. and chopped pickled onions. and and and...

[venta.livejournal.com]

In that case, surely you are not an autocondimentor. Just a, er, a ferociously keen condimentor :)

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

possibly so!

[exspelunca.livejournal.com]

No, what really freaks them when they ask if you want pepper before you've tasted the food is the reply, "Why? Don't you trust your chef?" (Family legend has it that a rich great aunt's chef gave notice when a guest peppered the soup without tasting it.)

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

That's a great story!

I hope I haven't caused any chefs to resign. I always add pepper to food before tasting it myself. This isn't because I think the chef might not be competent, it's because I know perfectly well that the general public like everything far milder than I do.

(Unfortunately restaurants never seem to have a "remove salt" shaker, which I would also use for the same reason.)

[venta.livejournal.com]

I'm confused by your last comment. Do you think adding salt makes things milder!?

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

No, sorry, poor wording. The point is that the median palate also likes things saltier than I do.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ah, that's ok then. Was fearing that I'd been fundamentally misunderstanding salt all my life.

I think it's probably true that I like most things less salty than average. Except I seem to cope fine with Japanese food, which is often very salty.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Used to have to put salt on our own crisps when I were a lad.

(Well, we didn't have to: ready salted had long been invented and was much more popular. But you could still buy salt-and-shake in any decent corner shop. And it did mean you could put less on if you wanted… although I always went for the full whack.)

[venta.livejournal.com]

You're not that ancient, y'know, I remember Salt'n'Shake perfectly well too :)

[zenithed.livejournal.com]

We had some at Christmas: they are GRIM.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Y'see, I was just thinking that I wished you'd told me that... but who am I kidding? I knew they'd be grim anyway, and I still tried them...

[kauket.livejournal.com]

I ate them anyway but I'd been drinking. They were horrid, and when I started reading your post (actually even before I got to the Port and Stilton crisp reference) I started thinking about those crisps and kinda remembered the flavour. Mmmmnot.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

I was going to say, that doesn't even SOUND nice.

Though I still want to try the Mackies haggis crisps:
http://www.mackies.co.uk/potato_crisps/home.aspx

[venta.livejournal.com]

I did mean to try some of them when I went to Edinburgh last year, but forgot. I think most beef/pork/ham/gammon/sausage-and-mash/hedgehog flavour crisps tend to have a very generic taste, so don't expect them to be actually exciting, though.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

I think Lidl sell them.

[condign.livejournal.com]

That sounds awful. And since I'm too far away from the source to ever acquire any, now I want some.