We all have a guilty pleasure in life

Guilty pleasures – we all have them. Even food professionals have them. A chef friend of mine could sometimes be seen in Hillbillies after her shift, stuffing her pretty face with chips topped with garlic and cheese. Other chefs I know live almost on Mars bars or Skittles.

I always wondered how guilt and pleasure can be put together. Surely, if it’s a pleasure, we should feel guilty about it?

To be honest, if I didn't feel guilty about my little quirks, I would eat way too much crisps – as this would be my guilty pleasure.

I try not to buy crisps when I go shopping. You know the multi-packs? It wouldn’t last more than a day or two. I normally only have a bag or two when I am in a pub after a few drinks. And since the pubs have been closed for a year now, I haven’t had crisps in a long time.

I tried to make some when we got our air fryer, and although they tasted ok, I didn’t get the kick out of them. The swish when you open the bag, the aroma that meets you and the satisfying tingle in your mouth that your tastebuds get when it hits the flavouring.

I love cheese and onion flavour – never vinegar and never any of the other weird flavours. The origin of crisps is associated with William Kitchiner who published a cookbook ‘The Cook’s Oracle’ with a recipe for ‘potatoes fried in slices’ using lard or dripping. This recipe hails from 1817, a lot has changed since for the humble crisp.

And thanks to good old William, we fell in love with thin slices of fried spuds. The first commercially sold crisps were flavourless but had a little sachet of salt added that the buyer was to sprinkle over the crisps. Fast forward to the 1950s when Irish man Joe ‘Spud’ Murphy thought of adding flavouring to the crisps he was selling under the Tayto brand. Yes, crisps lovers of the world – the cheese and onion crisp was invented in Ireland and we can thank Tayto employee Seamus Burke for it.

Joe’s vision and Seamus’ talent at the kitchen table lead to Mr Tayto. And we all love crisps so much that crisps have a global market lead of over 35 per cent of the overall snack market. But back to Mr Tayto, I love Taytos and I was a firm believer of Taytos over Kings. But while researching for this article, I found out that the same company owns both. But it’s not only a question of Tayto or Kings – in recent years we saw companies like Keogh’s, Joe’s Farm Crisps and O’Donnells creating wonderful tasting crisps made from Irish potatoes.

Keogh’s is known for its quirky marketing and packaging but also for some unusual flavourings like shamrock and sour cream (nice) and roast turkey secret stuffing (not tried these yet and not too keen on the idea).

The latest I have seen from Keogh’s is a truffle and real Irish butter flavour (will definitely try when I see it in a shop).

But how much cheese is actually in the cheese and onion flavoured crisps? Lucky for us, Keogh’s and O’Donnells seem to be using real cheese and Tayto is using cheese powder. Other companies are using yeast powder instead of anything cheese related. It seems to give eaters the cheese flavour and I saw a recipe for homemade crisps that recommends using yeast extract for the ‘authentic’ flavour. I'll take Tayto, Keogh’s or O’Donnells anytime!