Move Beyond All the Gourmet Cheese: French Potato Chips Represent Utterly Sinful.
This past Christmas, I found myself in the French countryside, which was displaying impeccable manners. Tasteful, twinkling lights, village market booths overflowing with remarkably pristine fruit and vegetables, and enough cheeses that could line every mile of the Chunnel with arterial plaque. Heaping dishes of lustrous seafood on ice seen through fogged brasserie windows. As I watched a long but orderly line of elegant residents picking up their artisanal *Bûche de Noël*, I mused, with some guilt, that my native city, York, which turns into a contemporary interpretation of a tableau of excess at this time of year with e-cigarettes tasting of mincemeat and ready-to-drink concoctions, would do well to absorb several tips.
A Refined Veneer
However every bit of “art de vivre” stuff is merely a refined front – The country is as prey to its most primal cravings similar to everywhere else. Just go into a local *supermarché* and the truth is revealed. The crisp aisle stands as a monument to decadence, lined with such varieties as blue cheese, spiced bean patty, beer-braised beef and salted butter tastes. What kind of person consumes chips that taste of butter? It is reminiscent of an item typical of one of those American fairs where they fry solid butter in batter. A certain comedian recently claimed they’re the best crisps in her experience, however she has undoubtedly been influenced by a form of regional conditioning – her formative years were in Brittany.
International Unregulation
I know the snack flavour business worldwide operates with as few rules as big tech. No one will permit the tuber to taste of itself, adorned only rightly with just a dignified dusting of salt. The UK boasts a checkered past regarding chip varieties in the UK, especially at this time of year. Not long ago, it should be remembered, bestowed upon us gingerbread Doritos and exclusive steak-and-pâté flavoured chips. Let us also recall the occasion when a famous high-street chain believed “festive fizz and berries” was an appealing flavour for a savoury snack? I had higher hopes from the nation of culinary masters.
Where does it end? *Pâté*-flavoured snacks? Profiterole? Gauloises? I must cease, before I accidentally suggest the next big thing.
