It was Smiths who made the Bovril flavoured crisps years ago, right?

(Was just discussing Britain's 'wacky' crisp flavours. I'm sure that the Bovril crisps were stronger tasting than the Marmite ones Walkers currently make.)

It was. They were excellent.

I think the stuff they use in "beef" flavour crisps nowadays is much the same stuff they use in Bovril anyway - or that they used in the meat-free Bovril they made a few years ago - so intentionally marketing a separate Bovril flavour would be like saying "our beef flavour tastes nothing like beef". Or maybe even opening themselves up to some sort of trading standards shenanigans. I note Walkers call their entirely beefless "beef" "Steak & Onion" now.

Thread hijack!

I have been eating Walkers Square(" Crisps"), which came in a multipack bag with some other Smiths things which still bear the Smiths name (specifically Chipsticks and Frazzles), and it just hit me - uniquely among all Walkers bags, Walkers Square(" Crisps") packets are the right colours, i.e. blue for salt & vinegar, and green for cheese & onion. You could say that this is an old Smiths brand being allowed to keep its colour scheme, but weren't Smiths Square Crisps C&O packets yellow anyway?

My brain hurts.

Cheese&Onion Square bags are green now? They always used to be yellow, until very recently. And yellow is the proper colour for c'n'o anyway, as KP Crisps always correctly maintained. Neither cheese nor onions are green, after all - both are in fact, to varying degrees and shades, yellow.

I thought Cheese and Onion were blue, and Salt and Vinegar were green? I can't think of a yellow bag, but Chicken are orange...

Walkers are the weirdos who put C&O in blue and S&V in green, in the face of every other brand.

And yes, C&O Square(" Crisps") now come in green packets, albeit weird landscape-layout ones with a big red Walkers stripe down the side like what they done gone done to French Fries.

Yellow makes more sense as a C&O colour (and a colour in general - yellow packets are really bright and stand out very well, too well to be wasted on "minority" flavours like Marmite or Cheddar Cheese or what have you) but tradition dictates green. Why is Roast Chicken orange? Why is Smokey Bacon a sort of dark red/maroon/burgundy colour? Who knows. But that is the way things are.

Um, because that's pretty much the colour smoked bacon is?

And orange is (sort of) the colour of a nicely roasted chicken.

It all makes sense.

Prawn Cocktail is pinkish, BBQ Rib is black, all sensible enough.

Worcester Sauce purple? Hmmm.

And Worcester Sauce ("They're Back!"*), which plesant-surprisingly** replaced Cheddar Cheese in the Walkers Variety Box I picked up at CostCo last week, are purple.

* You may say they're back, Mr Walkers, but I'm not sure their slightly-gangrenous cousin counts.
** It didn't stay pleasant for long; see previous footnote***.
*** They're still better than Cheddar Cheese, mind.

Worcester Sauce > Worcester Sauce II > BBQ Rib > Cheddar Cheese.

That reminds me, you'll probably already know, but ASDA are doing two 36-pack boxes for £4 or something daft.

Spring onions are a bit green.

Neither salt nor vinegar is blue.

But salt and vinegar are both preservatives, and if you aren't quick enough with mummifying corpses they go a bit blue-green.

On a slight tangent....

Has anyone tried Walkers Smokey Bacon crisps recently ?

I hadn't eaten them for a few years, but I remember them being reasonably tasty and pretty strong.
They were never a favourite but I used to enjoy the odd bag or two.

A few weeks ago I bought a Walkers "MEATY" 21-pack (7 bags each of 3 flavours - they were half-price in Tescos).

The Smokey Bacon crisps were absolutely tasteless !
Completely bland and literally no flavour at all. A HUGE difference from what I remember.

I've noticed certain brands and flavours change (taste-wise) to varying degrees in the past (sometimes for the better, usually for the worse), but never to such an extreme degree as these.

If you didn't know what flavour they were when you were eating them, there's no way you'd even be able to make an educated guess, they're THAT tastless.

I tried 2 bags just to make I hadn't got a "rogue" bag and both were the same.
The other 5 bags were thrown out....

They are remarkably bland and tasteless, which is possibly why they're Alan Shearer's favourite flavour of crisps. If you really want the taste of bacon, why not try... some bacon, and then eat some crisps, if you must.

Spring onion is traditionally light green. Makes sense, see!

I find Seabrook ready salted seem to have lost some of their subtle refinement lately. They seem a bit brutal compared to how they were a few months back.

Those Walkers new novelty flavours aren't particularly amazing, are they?

The Fish & Chips ones are like rancid Scampi Fries. They scare me.

Not tried any of the new Walkers flavours but ah! How I miss "fish n chips"! Especially back in the days when they were basically a bag full of salt & vinegar, withsome chunks of biscuit in. Oh, they were the food of kings.

I like that the packaging of Frazzles has been basically unchanged for at least twenty-eight years now.

Reassuring.

But before my time, those ones. :)

Anyway, Walkers' 'Cajun Squirrel' flavour is just like spicy peanuts, but in the shape and texture of crisps if that makes sense. With an even worst after-taste.

Walkers crisps seems to be called Lay's in Belgium, BTW. Same logo, different names, just as their Wall's ice cream is called Ola. Significantly less flavours too, as you'd expect.

Walkers and Lay's are owned by the sprawling tentacles of Pepsico, hence the similarity in logo, Lay's being the big American crisp brand.

They'd surely never rebrand Walkers here to become Lay's, though I suspect there is now fake nostalgia for the Walkers brand, which was itself only a minor regional crisp manufacturer until the mid eighties.

Did you know that in America, it's possible to buy a Marathon bar? Yes, not a Snickers. A Marathon bar. By Mars. With the Marathon/Snickers colourscheme etc.

BUT! It's an absolutely godawful 99% sawdust 'energy bar', and I don't recommend it to anyone at all. Still. Tsch!

Aw, shame.

It is true that American Milky Ways are the same as UK Mars bars, or am I confusing that with something else?

*nods slowly* I think that's the right way around yes. They do 'do' Milky Ways though. I can't think what it's called though, the one I tried anyway. I want to say "The 3 Muskateers", but that's not right. Someone else?

If you should ever get the chance, and like yer nuts, 'Payday's are fucking gorgeous. Like Snickers minus the chocolate and fondant, but with half-nuts, that are all gorgeously tasty. Like eating a bag of your favourite salted nuts that have been all glued together with sugary caramel. Quite soft and chewy. Lovely.

You know, that's the TRUest FAXt that I've seen in a long, long time. I'm going to start passingthat opinion off as my own I think.

It is right :)

They just released a mint 3 Musketeers as well, which isn't half bad. If you like minty things, that is.

We got the six novelty Walkers flavours in the shop last week, I thought the Fish'n'Chip were awful (lvoed the old Fish'n'Chips biscuity things though), the Onion Bhaji is oniony and the BUilders Breakfast somehow does manage to taste of bacon, egg and buttered toast all at the same time. I've not been brave enough to try the others yet.

Phew! Sorry - I worry sometimes that possibly, I might knock a nose or two out of joint, with my Yankophilia, and interest in such matters.

I am aware that some people tend to find Americans the most annoying people on the planet. At the same time a brit with verbal diarrhoea that has lived in the U.S.A could thus be profoundly annoying. You do have my deepest apologies, however I can't help being who I am.

I've not tried the mint one Targaff - but grr, I didn't realize you live in Seattle! I was there just before the election last year, n' all. Tsch.

Working my way through the new Walkers flavours meself.

Didn't really like the Fish & Chips. The smell reminded me of tributyl phosphine.

The Onion Bhaji ones were OK, but they could do with toning down the onion a little.

The Breakfast ones left me frightened and confused. They really do taste like baked beans, buttered toast and fried eggs. I'm not sure that a crisp should taste like an egg and I am distrustful of the witchery involved in making it do so.


Also - Rev, how's your LG Viewty treating you. Mine obviously heard me complain as it took the opportunity to break again. It's always the camera that goes and it's always in Bristol Zoo that it does it. Stay away from Bristol Zoo LG owners.

My Viewty's doing beautifully, ta. All the pics in this week's WoS photo-feature, and all the recent squirrel shots, were taken with it - it's so great to have a decent camera in my pocket all the time, without needing to specifically take one with me. And it's a joy for texting with, and I've got a fair clutch of decent games too. I'm totally delighted with it for £97 - it's properly enhanced my life.

Having also helped plough through the Walkers flavours (must be a nice little earner for them if several people like me are taste testing each of the new packets), the builders breakfast one is so far my favourite. Although I suspect it's just crisps mixed in with liquified contents from one of those All Day Breakfast tins you can buy when you're desperate for food.

Oh?

Everyone has a camera phone these days -- proof-positive that ghosts, U.F.Os and other paranormal phenomena doesn't exist. But anyway.

Yes. American Milky Ways have toffee/caramel.

Strangely however, they also have Mars bars here.

I think maybe the fluffy whatever-it-is is a bit different.

I will go to the machine tomorrow, buy one of each and file a report.

I'll get a '3 Muskateers' too.

Nothing wrong with Brits who live(d) in the US, for the record.

I think the American Mars Bar was discontinued. It had almonds in it. That gave me a shock -- and I don't bloody like almonds!

The Milky Way here (The US) is more or less equivalent to a British Mars Bar, but not as nice. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it's definitely different. I should test it back to back sometime, I think I still have some British Mars Bars here somewhere.

There's a few local places that stock imported British candy, but I don't usually buy it due to the prices -- a crunchie, Fry's Turkish Delight or Cadbury's Caramel is around the £1.50 mark last time I looked.

I can empathise. Here in Australia, a 22g bag of Monster Munch costs $2. For some reason, they stopped making them over here when I was about eight. *sniff*