SE Asia takes chips and snacks to a whole other stratosphere. Given so many of their chips are Lays', I don't know why those flavours can't be available to us as they are in production. It's like that fabulous room at the end of the tour of Coca Cola in Atlanta where you're given a massive plastic cup and twenty minutes to sample every drink the company creates globally. Why can't we buy Sparletta Sparberry or fizzy milk cola or Sprite Cucumber and oh, so much more?
Enjoyed this very much. Now desperate to try Salted Egg Crisps and absolutely will be nabbing that stocking idea. It’s a shame that English tastes are perceived as so limited — but perhaps it’s also the truth? British cuisine isn’t exactly punchy (though it does comfort pretty well). But yes: let snacks be fun.
They're expensive outside SE Asia but can be found and worth every bite. Brits have become far more adventurous about food, and in my view London and the major UK cities offer a much more enticing scope for eating out these days than any other western nation. But I can't type Salt & Vinegar crisps without my cheeks flooding with saliva.
What wonderful features - thank you for the pointers to them! I can't now go to Madrid - shops that only sell loose crisps?? I might never leave. I wrote a piece early in my Substack on the 'flavourists' who, like Pantone telling us what this year's colour will be, invented and then promoted the year's flavours. We are even more controlled in our food habits than we know. Given I submit to the hold of crisps, I want to try every flavour of them out there!
Korean honey butter chips work for the first handful then go weird. But the honey butter roasted almonds from the same line? SENSATIONAL.
I will die for Irvin's. Second thing I do when I get to Singapore is buy a massive bag from the concession at the airport (first is pick up a chilli crab puff and an ice copi-c to enjoy before immigration).
YES! Probably illegally, but there's nothing to stop you diverting into the food court on your way to the immigration queue; at Changi incoming and outbound passengers aren't split.
It’s funny; every time I’m in the UK I think to myself, “why can’t I get such interestingly flavored chips at home [in the US].”
SE Asia takes chips and snacks to a whole other stratosphere. Given so many of their chips are Lays', I don't know why those flavours can't be available to us as they are in production. It's like that fabulous room at the end of the tour of Coca Cola in Atlanta where you're given a massive plastic cup and twenty minutes to sample every drink the company creates globally. Why can't we buy Sparletta Sparberry or fizzy milk cola or Sprite Cucumber and oh, so much more?
Enjoyed this very much. Now desperate to try Salted Egg Crisps and absolutely will be nabbing that stocking idea. It’s a shame that English tastes are perceived as so limited — but perhaps it’s also the truth? British cuisine isn’t exactly punchy (though it does comfort pretty well). But yes: let snacks be fun.
They're expensive outside SE Asia but can be found and worth every bite. Brits have become far more adventurous about food, and in my view London and the major UK cities offer a much more enticing scope for eating out these days than any other western nation. But I can't type Salt & Vinegar crisps without my cheeks flooding with saliva.
SALT AND VINEGAR DISCOS 🤤🤤🤤
Oooh yes! I have to avert my eyes when I see them from the queue to buy stamps...
Two excellent pieces of journalism spring to mind reading this third one (and one answers the flavour question!)
https://www.vittlesmagazine.com/p/crisps-de-madrid
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2023/dec/02/the-weird-secretive-world-of-crisp-flavours
What wonderful features - thank you for the pointers to them! I can't now go to Madrid - shops that only sell loose crisps?? I might never leave. I wrote a piece early in my Substack on the 'flavourists' who, like Pantone telling us what this year's colour will be, invented and then promoted the year's flavours. We are even more controlled in our food habits than we know. Given I submit to the hold of crisps, I want to try every flavour of them out there!
Korean honey butter chips work for the first handful then go weird. But the honey butter roasted almonds from the same line? SENSATIONAL.
I will die for Irvin's. Second thing I do when I get to Singapore is buy a massive bag from the concession at the airport (first is pick up a chilli crab puff and an ice copi-c to enjoy before immigration).
Are you saying you can buy these treats BEFORE border control??
How civilised!
YES! Probably illegally, but there's nothing to stop you diverting into the food court on your way to the immigration queue; at Changi incoming and outbound passengers aren't split.
Such a very difference experience from Stansted...
Dante wrote a whole book about that airport! 🤭