Walkers Deep Ridged Salt & Malt Vinegar

Wow! Salt and vinegar flavour or what?  This is the kind of flavour that leaps out and grabs you by the throat. Which is not necessarily a recommendation.

I've seen these Walkers deep ridged "ridges twice as deep" crisps before of course, but only in gigantic bags. So when I spotted this little bag at the services on the A2 I rushed to buy them. Gasp! I'm not sure that was a good thing. This is definitely the old fashioned take the roof off your mouth style of salt and vinegar. The packaging tells me the crisps are twice as deep (that'll be the ridges then but twice as deep as what exactly?) with a bold flavour for epic satisfaction. I think I prefer the more modern more delicate version of salt and vinegar. Perhaps epic is not for me. Perhaps these are man-crisps?

The crisps are certainly very ridged. And I like the way the crisp is pictured in front of a mountain range. It's a clever idea. I also very much like the little man who disposes of his rubbish responsibly; on this packet he is shown (actually I think in this case he may be a she, which is unusual) struggling up a hill to reach the bin.

I notice this exact style of crisp is available in France but under the Lays name instead of the British Walkers brand. The design of the bag seemed pretty much the same (as I glanced at it in the service station shop) only Lays don't have the little person throwing the bag in a bin. Maybe it is a legal obligation to have this sign on snack food packaging in Britain but not in France. It seems rather a shame to leave it off after Walkers/Lays have gone to the trouble of designing a new little person for each style of crisp.

I didn't like these crisps very much because although the ridgyness and the crunch are very good indeed, the flavour is much too harsh. Maybe if I tried them in another flavour? I imagine that the combination of the wonderful ridgyness with a less attacking flavour might be just what the doctor ordered.