Saturday, November 15, 2008

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.

2 comments:

  1. Roast Ox potato chips? Wow, what a flavor combination. Like you, I've never had Roast Ox. Probably not bad but the name alone throws you.

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  2. I've definitely had some interesting food while here. Most of it, not so good. But according to my English friends, that's par for the course. They're uber thin here because they walk everywhere and their food is so revolting, they don't want to eat it.

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