Walkers Crinkles Salt & Malt Vinegar

I thought these posts were a little heavy on Marks & Spencer crisps so I went to Waitrose (the supermarket nearest to where I work) last week. Unfortunately the local branch isn't very good at crisps; they sell huge bags full of bags for families (and plenty of 3 for 2s) but not a great selection of small bags for the interested researcher.

I wanted to try these Walkers Crinkles "more flavour in every groove" in another flavour but despite kneeling down and grovelling at the back of the shelf all I could find was these. So here we are.

The package art shows a very thick crisp you might struggle to bite into so I was surprised to find these are relatively delicate. And the flavour is quite delicate too. Salt and vinegar crisps can be very harsh - I've often wondered why everyone has carried on eating them for so long - but not these. Even at the bottom of the package where the flavour is always stronger.

I hadn't eaten any salt and vinegar crisps for years but I was impressed.

The packaging isn't flashy and feels good and strong. Walkers' blurb tells me that CRINKLES, which is written in a sans serif typeface as though made from reconstituted potato, is a registered trademark. Shame I didn't notice the potato effect until I read the blurb.

And they have their own "throw this away" logo; instead of the usual rather angular unisex person dropping rubbish into a large mesh bin, Walkers have what looks like a portly middle-aged man with turned back cuffs and a bad back throwing his crisp packet away. I'd not noticed this before. It's rather smart, but does give the impression that logo man has eaten a few too many Walkers products. Oh dear. That'll be me in a year or two if I keep up this research. Although with any luck I won't be a middle-aged man.

For some reason the French and Swiss (other nationalities too - who knows?) think that salt and vinegar is an archetypally British flavour. "Very British!" they say enthusiastically, even in the middle of a sentence in french or german. So I am delighted to be able to report that Salt & Malt Vinegar is a very good flavour indeed.