Monday, July 07, 2014

An important and definitive ranking of crisps and snacks


After the mullering I took last week for my important and definitive ranking of chocolate bars (and you are all WRONG), I feel it is crucial that I get immediately back into the fray and discuss another aspect of Great British snacking culture: The packet of crisps.

Which ones, we ask, are the best bagged snacks you can get in the UK, and which are the worst? You are WRONG.


  1. Twiglets – Divine sticky goodness. If you hate Twiglets, you should turn in your passport and bugger off to Greenland where they take in outcasts such as yourself. Go on – clear off. Now
  2. Pickled Onion Monster Munch – These would have filled top spot, but the makers are penalised for making them so big these days you only get six in a packet
  3. Walker's Salt and Vinegar – Shilled by jugged-eared footballing maestro Gary Lineker, these are the kings of the potato-based crisp snack
  4. Mini Cheddars – Concentrated goodness in a bag, they taste exactly 450% better than full-sized Cheddars, all thanks to the makers' patent miniaturisation ray
  5. Brannigan's Roast Beef and Mustard – Because they don't flinch when it comes to the mustard, and these babies are proper hot. This also means there's also plenty left in the shop, because people don't understand class when they see it
  6. Cheeselets – I once trekked miles and miles from one town to the next trying to find new supplies of these melt-in-your-mouth cheesy snack, just to give to a fellow addict as a present. Now I'm not so sure about them. Too ridiculously dusty to be an effective snack food.
  7. Worcester Sauce crisps - The only crisp flavour permitted that deviates from the holy quartet of Ready Salted/S&V/C&O/Beef. Anything else is poncery (See 'Poncery' below)
  8. McCoy's Cheddar and Onion- The best of the wrinkled offerings (which are produced by leaving regular crisps in the bath for too long. TRUE FACT)
  9. Wotsits - Gorgeous melt-in-your mouth, with the superb taste of chemical cheese. Lose marks for leaving everything you touch covered in orange goo 
  10. Doritos - Tangy cheese flavour is the food of the (not terribly picky) gods. Anything else tastes like the shavings from a woodworking shop
  11. Chip Sticks - Lovely melty sticks of salt and vinegar goodness. But they end up mid-table because you cannot taste anything else for the rest of the day
  12. Dry Roast Peanuts – I could eat a sack of the things right now, but they would kill Jane completely TO DEATH, so I abstain and they sink into mid-table obscurity, like the Aston Villa of snack foods
  13. Ringos - I have loving memories of Ringos, but now that my local cinema does deep fried onion rings, why bother?
  14. Ready Salted – The benchmark of the potato crisp. Neither offensive nor truly inspiring.
  15. Burton's Fish and Chips - Meh
  16. Bombay Mix – The sweepings off the floor at the curry factory. TRUE FACT
  17. Waitrose Poncy Flavours selection – Representing anything that features sea salt, balsamic vinegar, things which aren't potatoes, or stuff Heston has pulled out of a rubbish skip. Stop it, it's not clever.
  18. Skips – Allegedly prawn-flavoured disappointments which are several layers of dreadful. Probably 99.9% air, so you are only kidding yourself by buying these. See also Prawn Cocktail crisps, which must be destroyed with flame and hammers
  19. Frazzles - No
  20. Pringles – If you like Pringles, you are dead to me
  21. Pork Scratchings – Made from the toe-nail clippings from old people's homes. TRUE FACT


Naturally, I welcome your comments on this list. Which I will then ignore because YOU ARE WRONG.

4 comments:

  1. sarahdal9:02 am

    Cheeselets! But no mention of niknaks? McCoy's Salt & Vinegar too, which regularly remove all the skin from the roof of my mouth. Your'e dead right about twiglets tho.

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  2. Worcestershire Sauce flavoured twiglets are the crack cocaine of the snack aisle. Not seen them for years, presumably because they are now Class A.

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  3. cCheese & Chive Pringles are smothered in heroin to make them a little bit less adictive.

    On Twiglets though - you are RIGHT.

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  4. Bob Fox8:17 am

    My wife has just bought Coop sea salt and Chardonnay wine vinegar. There is no need to invent satire, because the real world does it for you. Is this the pinnacle of the S&V classic, or is it UNMITIGATED PONCERY? I have not tasted them yet because such things are regarded as a sexual perversion in Yorkshire, and best saved for the weekend.

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