Funky Chips

So, this week, I'm in the UK doing some work, and I stumble across an entire array of weirdly-flavored chips. On my travels over the last few years, I've endured curry fries, steak tar-tar, thick worchestershire sauce, bone-in-scale-on-ungutted-salmon, unsalted and runny ketchup, pickled ham, and fish jello--a wretched (supposedly epicurean) blend of fish bits in clarified lard. I've had oily Guiness, soupy cucumbers, way-too-heady Beck's, and extraordinarily bitter coffee.

But today, in a lonely datacenter just outside of Leeds, UK, I experienced potato chips. Not that I haven't had chips before--I rather love them. However, it seems that these crazy Brits will put any flavor on a chip. Take my two examples from today: Roast Chicken and Roast Ox.



Who would think that meat-flavored chips would take off?

Me: "Hi, honey, when's dinner?"
The Mrs.: "Well, the chicken isn't done yet. But we do have the green beans and potatoes."
Me: "No worries. [Pulls out bag of Walkers Roast Chicken Potato Chips] I've got it under control!"

Actually, they did taste pretty good. The aroma of Chicken smote me as I opened the bag of Roast Chicken chips, but the taste was more like a normal, unflavored potato chip. Still, pretty good.

The flavor of the Roast Ox chips was, well, not as oxeny as I imagined they would be. Of course, never having eaten an ox, I probably wouldn't be able to pick the flavor from among any other beef-like flavors. The taste of these chips could be, in my mind, be described as extra-smokey barbecue. Quite salty, quite good.

So there you have it. Two foods from the UK this week that don't suck. But they are weird.