Look Past All the Gourmet Fromage: France's Potato Chips Are Utterly Sinful.
Over the holidays, I was staying in the French countryside, an area that appeared displaying impeccable manners. Tasteful, twinkling lights, village market booths piled high with beautifully vibrant fruits and veggies, and enough cheeses to coat the entire Channel Tunnel with arterial plaque. Heaping dishes of glistening shellfish on ice seen through fogged brasserie windows. While observing a extended but civil procession of elegant residents retrieving their craft Christmas cakes, I mused, with some guilt, that my place of origin, York, which becomes a present-day version of a tableau of excess over the holidays complete with mince-pie flavoured vapes and BuzzBallz, could learn some pointers.
A Refined Veneer
Yet every bit of “art de vivre” affectation is merely a refined front – The country falls victim equally to its lowest desires like any other place. Simply step inside any grocery store and you’ll see. The potato chip section constitutes a temple of indulgence, stacked with such varieties as *bleu d'Auvergne*, spiced bean patty, beer-braised beef and savory dairy fat tastes. What kind of person consumes a fried potato snack flavoured like dairy spread? It is reminiscent of an item typical of those infamous US state fairs where they deep fry sticks of butter. A certain comedian has asserted they represent the pinnacle of snacking in her experience, though she has clearly been influenced by some kind of local propaganda – after all, her childhood was in Brittany.
Worldwide Anarchy
I know the snack flavour business worldwide is just as anarchic as big tech. There is a refusal to permit the tuber to taste of itself, adorned only rightly by a simple, respectful sprinkle of sodium. Our own nation possesses a checkered past regarding chip varieties across Britain, notably around Christmas. Recently, let us not forget, bestowed upon us gingerbread Doritos and exclusive steak-and-pâté flavoured chips. Furthermore, who can erase the memory of the occasion when a major retailer believed “sparkling wine and seasonal fruit” was an appealing flavour in a salty crisp? I expected more of the land of Escoffier.
What next? Goose liver potato chips? Choux pastry flavour? Tobacco-flavoured chips? It's best I halt, I’m only giving them ideas.
