‘What I’ve learned today,” says my friend Lucy, stepping firmly away from the crisp buffet, “is that you can have too much of a good thing.” My volunteer testers and I were enthusiastic about the prospect of tasting our way through 10 types of lightly salted, crisply fried potato, but we all agreed, once they were laid out side by side in anonymous bowls, that it was surprisingly hard to differentiate between them. That said, good news: every single one had its cheerleaders, so there were no real duds in this sample.
To outline what I’m looking for from a salted crisp, it should be crisp, obviously. To this end, all the bags were opened at the same time, just before the blind tasting. Salt levels are a matter of personal preference, though it should be upfront rather than a mere seasoning, while, in an ideal world, the potatoes themselves would be the primary flavour, rather than a mere texture. They should be cooked long enough that they crunch, rather than melt between the teeth, but it’s a delicate balance: too long in the oil and they’ll be bitter. And that oil – if you can taste it at all – should be pleasant: too strong a flavour, even of the best fat, will overpower the spuds. Last, crisps should be dangerously moreish: if you can eat one and stop, they’re not good crisps.
