I'm still alive, and the conclusion of "For Science!"

Hello everybody! I'm still alive if you were wondering. I am currently up in God's country, i.e. The Great State of Montana, visiting my fiance, Sara. We've been having a great time so far. We got some work done for Sara's mom, Betty, and went to the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman. I'll have more on that when I get back to Tooele. But for right now I just wanted to let everyone know I made it up here safe and sound, and I am having a great time. I would also like to take this time to complete my "For Science!" segment.

Now that I have had a week to think about the remaining two chip flavors, "Crispy Duck & Hoison" and "Fish and Chips," I must say my taste testing experience peaked early. I should have just stopped at "Bhaji Onion."I did however share this last painful experience with my fiance and her folks. As soon as I arrived in Sheridan we popped open both bags of chips and let the taste love begin. Upon opening the "Crispy Duck & Hoison" a putrid aroma of rancid duck and old cooking grease wafted into the air. After taking in the aroma for a bit I decided to try a handful. Not surprisingly the chips tasted like they smelled: Donald Duck napalmed by an F-4 Phantom and then buried in an Irish peat bog for two millenia, and then dug up, microwaved, and then chopped up and packaged and renamed as "Crispy Duck & Hoisin" chips for Walker's. Yummy! I was dismayed at how these chips tasted. I love duck, Duck L'Orange is one of my favorite dishes of all time. But these chips just give Duck as a food a bad name. Maybe I am being too harsh, but "Crispy Duck & Hoisin" does not translate well into the chip world. My preconceptions/hopes of tasting London's Chinatown were dashed. Instead of tasting Chinatown's finest cuisine, I ended up tasting Chinatown's putrid sewer system. Definitely one spud out of five for this one.

Next we move on to the most stereotypical and unoriginal of all the chip flavors, "Fish and Chips" chips. So what do you think of when you hear "Fish and Chips?" Personally I think of Picadilly Circus, riding the tube, Canary Wharf, Nelson's Column and the Lions of Trafalgar Square and the smell of the street vendors hot dog and almond stands as you cross Westminster Bridge. These are just a few things I think of when I associate with England along with "Fish and Chips." I know, these are typical touristy images, but whatever these are some of my favorite places in London, and I don't care if they are touristy. I will give Walker's this though, "Fish and Chips" chips do smell like the real thing. My expectations were pretty high, I mean they nailed the smell of fish and chips, how cool is that. The taste test on the other hand was a miserable failure on par with the Hindenburg disaster of 1937. My expectations, like the famous Zepplin went up in flames once the first chip hit my tongue. Tartar sauce, fish, fries, and vinegar should not be on a chip. For one these chips were way too salty, it was like they imported all the salt from the Great Salt Lake and dumped it all on these chips. The salt almost makes these chips inedible from the start. Secondly, the fish taste is just as unpleasant as the salty taste. Again how much fish oil can one use on a chip before they can say there is enough? It shouldn't be that much right? I think the manufacturers were still adding fish oil to these chips right up until the bags were sealed. The fish taste overpowers these chips to an infinite degree, there are not enough words in any language to describe how disgusting fish chips taste. With the combination of salt and fish you really can't taste much else with these chips. The salt and fish overpower the subtle hints of vinegar and tartar sauce, which is a shame really. Fish and chips are delicious when you physically have the fish and chips in your hot little hands. This begs the question "How can the British screw up their bread and butter?" If anything is distinctly British, outside of the stiff upper-lip, and being polite, it is fish and chips. WTF ENGLAND! You took all that was good about fish and chips and bastardized it with a bag of chips claiming to taste like fish and chips. It pretty much took my taste buds a whole week to recover from that last travesty. It saddens me really, because I had such high hopes for these chips. If you have a death wish, or wish something ill upon someone who as done you ill I would recommend these chips for consumption. Other than that these chips are definitely relegated to the trash bin, or white elephant gift parties. That is really all they are good for, a good laugh. I give these chips no spuds out of five.

That does it for this installment of "For Science!" Sorry I don't have any pictures up for you. The bags were thrown out before I could get a chance to post them. But if you really want to see what all the bags look like you can see them here. Tune in next time.