I’m not a macho man. I cry watching sad movies and listening to good music. But I know this: if you can’t handle the searing beauty of salt and vinegar chips, you’re weak and don’t deserve to eat any variety of deep-fried potato.
Someone on Reddit also knows this, and last week went to the trouble of testing 11 types of Aussie salt and vinegar chips – a project that feels more 2020 lockdown than 2022 freedom. The aim? Crowning the strongest chip. That’s right, the strongest, not the “most intense” or the “saltiest”.
Behold the very scientific method:
We were looking for which chip had the strongest flavour initially and the strongest aftertaste.
French Fries being so little were judged on a handful instead of a singular chip.
All these chips were bought on the same day and were eaten by myself and two others.
A chart was made, Low, Medium and High, of which we ranked which chip belonged where, changing what needed to be changed after all chips were eaten.
We then analysed our results seeing which ones had the most highs and worked our way to the one that had the most lows.
To which some wag replied: “No pH testing or salt filtration? I was going to nominate you for an Ig Nobel prize but your methods seem subjective at best. Let’s file this one under ‘further research required’.”
The results were thus:
1. Aldi Sprinters
2. Red Rock Deli
3. Smith's
4. Blackstone
5. Kettle
6. Natural Chip Co
7. French Fries
8. Thins
9. Tyrrell’s
10. Pringles
11. Vege Chips
S&V fiends will notice the conspicuous absence of Samboy, which would surely sweep the field. To that our tester says: “I really wanted to include Samboys as they seemed awesome, but as they seem to be very difficult to get where I live they could not be included. Put them at the top of the list in your heart if you wish.”
“Samboys is the king in exile of this list,” another commenter says.
As is always the case on Reddit, the post comments are where the real juice is – and where I learnt, today, that the skin in some people’s mouths actually peels after eating S&V. I had no idea this was a thing and apologise profusely to any mouth-peelers I may have called weak just now.
Here are a few more choice comments:
“My tongue is splitting just thinking about this.”
“It made me gleek. Proposing this as the word of the day.”
“Did you have palate cleansers in between?”
“Fucking Pringles [and its blue packaging]. Everyone knows salt and vinegar taste like pink.”
“When I lost my taste during Covid, S&V chips were a godsend. I could hear the distant whine of vinegar through the static.”
“I worked for Smith’s which make the Aldi brand too and I can confirm Aldi version have a higher flavour specification on all their chips.”
“I ate a bag of Aldi chips myself on a long drive years ago. The skin on the tongue and inside of my cheeks was sloughing off the next day. Freaked me out!”
“[A] few years ago I nailed two packets of Smiths and later that night I was peeling huge pieces of skin off the roof of my mouth and insides of my cheeks. It was amazing how much skin I pulled out of there. I can’t vouch for any of these flavours being the best but for an internal skin remover I highly recommend Smiths.”
