Monster Munch is fundamentally a low crisp for dogs
July 27, 2018 3:09 AM   Subscribe

What Your Choice of Crisps Says About You - Or: Walkers Sensations have made me lose my mind.
posted by EndsOfInvention (51 comments total) 24 users marked this as a favorite
 
That sure was something. Every time it seemed like it'd come to a natural coda it just kept crunching on.

Well-observed, though, apart from that bit about McCoys. A thick, ridge-cut, strongly-flavoured salt and vinegar crisp is one of Earth's purer delights, and I'll hear no dull witterings about taste-numbed dads to the contrary.
posted by entity447b at 3:25 AM on July 27, 2018 [4 favorites]


I feel like Cofresh snacks almost deserve their own category here. They're pretty ubiquitous these days, having only a few years ago been something of a corner-shop crisp. The chilli and lemon grills are a candidate for the pinnacle of human endeavour, in my opinion.
posted by pipeski at 3:46 AM on July 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


I am not a big crisps guy but I do like something more substantial, like Kettle Chips* or McCoys. I am also a middle class dad though, so this essay has me bang to rights.
(*Walkers Sensations are a cheap rip-off with shit flavours)
posted by EndsOfInvention at 3:50 AM on July 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


I've lived here for 11 years and there's a lot of crisps I still need to discover. When I first moved here I was absolutely fasci-horrified by the variations in crisp flavours in this country. I'm still not convinced by Roast Chicken, Beef & Onion or Prawn Cocktail but Sweet Chilli is super more-ish.

I disagree with lumping all Doritos together. I think there is something in the choice of Cool Ranch vs. Nacho Cheese (or as our household affectionately calls them, "Cheesy Feetos"). Cool Ranch is more for people who drink a Pimm's in the pub garden even if it's cloudy - optimisic. Nacho Cheese is people who binge watch Friends on a sunny Saturday afternoon - feeling hungover even if you didn't drink.

Crisps are to be flopped from a height onto the centre of the table without any announcement. Anyone wishing to acknowledge the presence of crisps may say, "Ooh, crisps";

Wow, this is so true it could be part of the U.K. Citizenship quiz. Actually, proficiency in all the rules should be a pre-requisite for entering the U.K.
posted by like_neon at 3:52 AM on July 27, 2018 [4 favorites]


The [cofresh] chilli and lemon grills are a candidate for the pinnacle of human endeavour, in my opinion.

Quoted for truth. That they tend to be quite inexpensive as well is proof that God exists and is merciful.
posted by Dysk at 3:57 AM on July 27, 2018


He knocks ready salted but eating a pack of them whilst watching Game of Thrones really added to the Iron Islands bits... salt for the salt king!

Nothing on Tyrrels Veg Crisps... in GoT of crisps, they are the One Eyed Raven. In D&D the druid. I don't care if it makes me some sort of god damn hippy, I'm near addicted. Veg for the veg god! (I think the heats getting to me tbh)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:58 AM on July 27, 2018 [5 favorites]


I disagree with lumping all Doritos together.

Same, but for Monster Munch. Pickled Onion Monster Munch are their own unique terrible thing, but Flamin' Hot and Roast Beef are very tasty without the existential horror.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 4:02 AM on July 27, 2018


I've only tried Pickled Onion Monster Munch and it was horrible (this coming from a person who eats pickled onions by the handful). I may have to give them another try with Flamin' Hot.
posted by like_neon at 4:05 AM on July 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


According to this:

- my "cogs spin on a different frequency, in opposite directions and on a different axis. (I) think it’s alright to slit a throat, for instance, or heave a body into an open well. (I) don’t blink about firing an air rifle into a crowd. That Sort Of Thing."
- I "should be in a medical prison."
- I spend my life "and shagging, and shagging and shagging and shagging, amen."

and

- I am "deranged and built to destroy."

This is the best post ever on Metafilter, possibly the best writing ever on the internet, and pretty much bang-on. (I love spicy Nik-Naks, Twiglets and Frazzles...)
posted by dowcrag at 4:10 AM on July 27, 2018 [6 favorites]


I love [...] Twiglets

mods help mods MODS
posted by EndsOfInvention at 4:15 AM on July 27, 2018 [8 favorites]


Regarding Frazzles I'm honestly surprised there's no mention of their fatal flaw: you will spend the next 12-18 hours having "bacon burps". I thought this was established fact. Is it a genetic thing, like with coriander?
posted by EndsOfInvention at 4:16 AM on July 27, 2018


Bacon burps are a feature, not a bug. I say this as a vegetarian.
posted by dowcrag at 4:42 AM on July 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


Co-op's own-brand salt & vinegar are the crack cocaine of crisps. Sadly (or perhaps fortunately), my local branch no longer stocks them.
posted by Paul Slade at 4:42 AM on July 27, 2018 [4 favorites]


Also, if you can choose pickled onion flavour crisps, always choose pickled onion flavour crisps.

I wish there was pickled egg flavour. And that more pubs still had a jar of picked eggs behind the bar.
posted by dowcrag at 4:45 AM on July 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


(Irish version):

Tayto: You drive a Corolla and never miss the death notices on local radio.
King: You're an old man who remembers when you had to open the little packet of salt and put it on the crisps yourself. You still call the local Tesco "Quinnsworth".
Bacon Fries: So it's 8pm on a Friday and here you are drinking with your work colleagues again, all of whom you hate.
Mighty Munch: You still put in the the "and a half" when someone asks you how old you are.
Hunky Dorys: It's Friday, you're at your desk in Deloitte hungover with your kit bag under your desk ready to head back home for Junior B training as soon as it hits 5.
Keogh's: You're spending the weekend getting pampered with the girlies at the spa, although you're having Superquinn sausages for breakfast first.
Tayto Bistro: Ah back home from Dublin are you? You're not fooling anyone. I know your father.
O'Donnell's: Sorcha declined my dinner party invitation? Sorcha is such a bitch.
SuperValu Signature Tastes: You buy local produce and own all the Ballymaloe cookbooks.
Walkers: Go back to England.
posted by kersplunk at 4:46 AM on July 27, 2018 [12 favorites]


Well-observed, though, apart from that bit about McCoys. A thick, ridge-cut, strongly-flavoured salt and vinegar crisp is one of Earth's purer delights, and I'll hear no dull witterings about taste-numbed dads to the contrary.

So long as we can agree that people who eat the McCoy's Flame Grilled Steak on the 18.03 Paddington to Penzance need to be thrown off the train as it crosses the highest bridge on the route and machine gunned on the way down in the style of the military researchers in Under Siege 2.
posted by biffa at 4:53 AM on July 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


PSA: Aldi's obvious Kettle Chips knockoffs are actually better than the real thing.

The Doritos bit applies to around 60% of the straight men I know, and all of them work in IT.
posted by threetwentytwo at 5:20 AM on July 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


To add to the very accurate Irish one above:

Tayto Chickatees: You've just escaped from a secure unit and nothing and no one will stop you from doing what the voices order
KP Rancheros: You are Flann O'Brien
posted by fallingbadgers at 5:39 AM on July 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


Indirectly because of this post I have learned that Hostess Munchies are no longer a thing.
posted by hearthpig at 6:06 AM on July 27, 2018


There's this brand over here called Gårdschips that makes fancy-ass flavors like Sourcream & Black garlic or Cheddar from Halland or Atacama Salt. Alas, my palate is not refined enough to appreciate the refreshing twist peculiar to the sodium chloride from that geographical region. So in my world, if you eat Gårdschips, you're probably quite a handful.

The fancy flavors are not actually tasty.
posted by Vesihiisi at 6:09 AM on July 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


I love [...] Twiglets

mods help mods MODS


I only regret that I have but one favorite to give for this.
posted by doctornecessiter at 6:25 AM on July 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


Apparently I am Doritos.
posted by Easy problem of consciousness at 6:40 AM on July 27, 2018


I like BBQ Lays and Cool Ranch Doritos. I'm sure that speaks to my having grown up in the south, in Texas. I'm fine with any judgement that is leveled towards me. You can pry the chips from my cold dead cool ranch dusty finger-tips/hands!!
posted by Fizz at 6:56 AM on July 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


inb4 the rest of the Americans wake up. Cornquistadors is for those who love the taste of genocide and enslavement.
posted by Nelson at 7:09 AM on July 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


Pickled Onion Monster Munch are their own unique terrible thing

i eventually had to ban these from my home bc my roommate at the time would eat them when he was hungover and the resulting burpy liquor/coffee/pickled onion breath was literally a fucking war crime
posted by poffin boffin at 7:13 AM on July 27, 2018 [3 favorites]


fundamentally a low crisp for dogs

I read the title of this post and immediately assumed Chris Onstad would be the author of TFA.
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:30 AM on July 27, 2018 [3 favorites]


As a child, I enjoyed Hula Hoops. Just plain/salted though, because I was that sort of kid.

Right up until the science lesson where we were doing "calories in food" and burning various snacks underneath a test tube full of water, measuring the temperature change, and from that calculating a very (VERY) approximate calorific value for the combusted comestible.

It wasn't the temp change that was notable for Hula Hoops. Oh no.

It was the river of molten fat that emerged, ran down the pin upon which the Hoop was carefully impaled and then congealed on the little lump of plasticine tasked with holding the pin aloft.

I asked my Mum not to buy us any more Hula Hoops.
posted by BuxtonTheRed at 7:42 AM on July 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


fundamentally a low crisp for dogs

the low crisp of high-heeled dogs
posted by kurumi at 8:43 AM on July 27, 2018 [9 favorites]


I was all ready to post "I feel personally attacked" at the bit about going to an adult dinner party with a "bottle of £6 red wine (ignored) and two-for-£3 Kettle Chips (gratefully devoured)" but then I saw what kersplunk wrote above and let me tell you, this is violence.
posted by ocular shenanigans at 9:04 AM on July 27, 2018


Pickled Onion Monster Munch are their own unique terrible thing

Fight me. Pickled Onion Monster Munch + Irn Bru is a guaranteed hangover cure and that's a scientific fact so

McCoys brought out a limited edition Pickled Onion a good few years ago and they were great, good and hurt-your-face pickly, but they never did them again sadly. I like S&V McCoys because they're so strong, though the "man crisps" BS ad campaign a while ago annoyed me somewhat.

Co-op's own-brand salt & vinegar are the crack cocaine of crisps.

The ones with the Chardonnay vinegar?? Omg they are amazing slash pure evil! brb
posted by billiebee at 9:22 AM on July 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


Pickled Onion Monster Munch are their own unique terrible thing

They are a thing of wonder and sensory beauty.

Random brand pickled onion snacks are often best thanks to a total lack of finesse when it comes to the acidity + onion flavour. A good pickled onion snack has you puckering your face up.

Fight me. Pickled Onion Monster Munch + Irn Bru is a guaranteed hangover cure and that's a scientific fact so

The last time I stayed up all night without going to bed was in 1994. My Scottish companion suggested a 2 litre bottle of Irn Bru would 'sort me right out' for the busy day ahead. Reader, it did not. 'Turn me inside out' would be more accurate.
posted by dowcrag at 9:44 AM on July 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


As a lifelong Anglophile American who wears a Fred Perry M12 and Clark’s desert boots almost every day of the year, was raised on late night reruns of The Prisoner, and still dreams of one day dating Diana Rigg:

This was the most English thing I have ever read in my life. Kingsley Amis is straightening his ascot in his grave.
posted by rock swoon has no past at 10:40 AM on July 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


Co-op's own-brand salt & vinegar are the crack cocaine of crisps.

The ones with the Chardonnay vinegar?? Omg they are amazing slash pure evil! brb


That's the ones. See you at the next meeting?
posted by Paul Slade at 11:06 AM on July 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


That's the ones. See you at the next meeting?

Sorry, I ain't even pretending to get on that wagon. If you're all out I know a guy who knows a guy...I don't charge much of a markup, just enough to buy a few bags for myself yeah?
posted by billiebee at 11:32 AM on July 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


Crisps should be opened down the seam of the packet and flailed like a science room frog until all the bag's contents glisten beneath the light

Heretic!
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 11:43 AM on July 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


inb4 millennials ruin potatoes

this piece sent me whirling down a rabbit hole of internet because what even is a 'pom bear' and in answering the question i have landed at WWW.POTATOPRO.COM and whoops there goes the rest of my day and possibly also my weekend

also
potato power is untraceable power
posted by halation at 11:53 AM on July 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


It's worth pointing out that before the recipe was changed to the healthier version, Nice n Spicy Nik Naks were boss snacks when you've been to the pub and are waiting for a bus home. Since the change, they are cardboard.
posted by YoungStencil at 12:05 PM on July 27, 2018 [1 favorite]


what even is a 'pom bear'

this should only refer to a pomeranian with a short clip haircut so it looks like a teddy bear and no one can plausibly convince me otherwise
posted by poffin boffin at 12:53 PM on July 27, 2018 [2 favorites]


A Pom Bear is a teddy bear shaped processed potato snack. It's thin, insubstantial, almost textureless and fairly bland. It's one of those weird euro-foods that seem to crop up everywhere for reasons that are inexplicable. What appeal they have (see also Kinder chocolate) seems to come entirely from their inoffensiveness rather than any positive quality.
posted by pipeski at 4:34 PM on July 27, 2018


Best potato chips ever: hotdog flavor.

Oh, Canada!
posted by aramaic at 6:08 PM on July 27, 2018


Our local corner shop has managed to get its hand's on a crate of Polish Lays, including such flavours as sour cream and dill, sausage, and mushroom. I haven't even tried them yet, but that right there is why European integration is the bestest.
posted by Helga-woo at 12:48 AM on July 28, 2018 [1 favorite]


Ive seen hot dog chips at 7-11s in the US.
posted by brujita at 9:19 AM on July 28, 2018


help how do I delete someone else's post?
posted by loquacious at 9:25 AM on July 28, 2018 [2 favorites]


Written by a southerner, as no mention of Seabrooks, the ubercrisp, the crisp that knows no superior, the crisp that other crisps wish they were. My Northern Irish and Irish friends have similar feelings about Tayto.
posted by Vortisaur at 12:12 PM on July 28, 2018 [2 favorites]


Ive seen hot dog chips at 7-11s in the US.

All these moments will be lost, like tears in the rain.
posted by Paul Slade at 2:52 PM on July 28, 2018 [2 favorites]


Seabrooks crisps are great, although having lived for a while in and around Bradford, I'm inclined to think there's an element of 'Yorkshire is best' about their popularity. I'd counter with the British Crisp Co.'s range from Cornwall, which includes the most English varieties possible.
posted by pipeski at 4:40 PM on July 28, 2018


Alright, look, I did in fact Canada-brag about hotdog flavor, because they've also produced cheddar hotdog and jalapeno cheddar hotdog flavors (all of which go great with ketchup flavor chips) but in the end we all wish we could get britchips any time we want.

Which we can't.

...so, like, screw you and your cheese+onion, your CTM, your "cornish pasty", your worchestershire flavors when we're stuck with *expletive* "deep dish pizza" flavor, and its ilk.

They're made by the same chip conglomerates, and yet they choose to punish those of us that live in the Benighted Colonies.

We hates you! We hates you forever!
posted by aramaic at 9:41 PM on July 28, 2018


ctrl-F Seabrook

Seabrooks, the ubercrisp, the crisp that knows no superior, the crisp that other crisps wish they were.

No truer word, etc.

Important news for southerners: Morrisons stock them!
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 3:28 AM on July 29, 2018 [1 favorite]


The only place I ever lived with regular supply of Seabrook's was Milton K.

I'd counter with the British Crisp Co.'s range from Cornwall, which includes the most English varieties possible.

If you're heading for the SW then give Burt's a go. My SO swears by their Firecracker Lobster flavour.
posted by biffa at 8:21 AM on July 29, 2018


Seabrooks used to be ok, but the salt and vinegar flavour, the king of all the flavours, has withered away into a pallid imitation of its old self. You open a packet expecting Sun Ra, and you get Kenny G.

Paul Slade and Billiebee know the score. The true heir is the Co-op sea salt and chardonnay wine vinegar crisps. I don't care about what they call them, because like any true s&v crisps they taste of tongue-puckering mouth-burning Porton Down-alerting salt and vinegar chemical onslaught, which is how proper salt and vinegar crisps used to taste.

(And they're in stock in our little mini Co-op round the corner, not just in the little packets but in big bags of joy.)
posted by reynir at 2:25 PM on July 29, 2018 [1 favorite]


.
posted by GoblinHoney at 12:57 PM on July 31, 2018


« Older Cannibal AI and pancakes   |   “There’s a type of accomplishment, to grow and... Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments