Look Past All the Handcrafted Cheese: French Crisps Represent Utterly Depraved.
Over the holidays, I spent time in France, a place that seemed on its best behaviour. Discreet, sparkling decorations, outdoor market stands stacked with beautifully vibrant fruit and vegetables, and such an abundance of fromage capable of clogging the entire Channel Tunnel with cholesterol. Piled platters of lustrous seafood on ice seen through misty restaurant glass. While observing a extended but civil queue of stylish locals collecting their handmade yule logs, I mused, with some guilt, that my native city, York, that transforms into a contemporary interpretation of Hogarth’s Gin Lane at this time of year featuring mince-pie flavoured vapes and BuzzBallz, could learn several tips.
The Sophisticated Front
However every bit of “art de vivre” affectation is just a polished mask – The nation is as prey to its lowest desires as the rest of us. Merely enter a local *supermarché* and you’ll see. The crisp aisle is an absolute sink of depravity, lined with flavours including Roquefort, falafel, beer-braised beef and *beurre salé* profiles. Who eats chips that taste of butter? It is reminiscent of something from one of those midway festivals where they submerge butter patties in hot oil. A certain comedian recently claimed they are the ultimate chip she has ever sampled, though she has clearly succumbed to some kind of local propaganda – her formative years were in that very region.
International Unregulation
One must acknowledge the crisp flavouring industry across the globe is as lawless and unregulated as big tech. There is a refusal to let potato be potato, enhanced only as necessary by a modest application of seasoning. Our own nation possesses a checkered past regarding chip varieties across Britain, notably around Christmas. Not long ago, let us not forget, gave us gingerbread Doritos and special-release pastry-and-meat potato snacks. Let us also recall the instance where a well-known shop deemed “prosecco and winter berry” constituted a desirable taste for a savoury snack? I expected more from the nation of culinary masters.
Where does it end? Goose liver potato chips? Profiterole? Cigarette-tasting crisps? I should stop, before I accidentally suggest the next big thing.
