From morale boosters in the blitz to comfort food in the pandemic, a short history from ready salted to oyster and vinegar
In May, the UK government launched its “Prepare” emergency awareness campaign, ominously encouraging people to stock up on things such as bottled water, a wind-up radio and non-perishable foodstuffs. I’ve collected a few cans of soup but, more successfully, I’ve quietly been stockpiling the Co-op’s sea salt and chardonnay wine vinegar crisps (in the big bags), just in case. Like millions of British people, when I say I love crisps, I really mean it.
Crisps are the ideal survival product, sealed and salted, but a great packet can also function as a private restaurant where you dine alone, crisp by crisp, intensely scrutinising the crunch, flavour and execution, like a Michelin inspector of snacks. They are as transporting as they are comforting – and unsurprisingly, they had a good pandemic, with Britons buying £441m more bagged snacks in 2020 than they did in 2019. They even helped morale during the blitz. At Smith’s Crisps AGM in 1941, chairman Sir Herbert E Morgan noted that Londoners were taking the brand’s crisps down to air raid shelters: “As in times of peace our crisps have been a standby, and an always reliable friend – they are additionally so these days,” he told shareholders.
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