Crunch – an ode to crisps by Natalie Whittle (Faber)
We don’t often get sent books to review at Deserter. Crisps, yes. Writs, occasionally. But the literary world had yet to consider our gaze worthy of their offerings.
However, word of the Deserter Pubcast’s monthly ‘Crisp News’ has clearly travelled, so when Natalie Whittle wrote a hefty love letter to the cherished salty snack, our work in the field was rewarded. Unfortunately, with more work.
But what a pleasure it was. Because Natalie doesn’t just love crisps, she understands them. Not just their history and their development into a global snack of infinite variety, she grasps their place in British life. She gets the deep fried marvel that fills the gap between meals, joins us on the walk home from school, accompanies a sandwich, or is the pint’s best friend. She recognises its special place in our cultural landscape.
Despite having been a journalist with the Financial Times, that most adult of organs, Whittle brings her childhood with her on this journey from its origin story to its all-conquering ubiquity at the heart of a nation. And while I’m familiar with the history of crisps, it is filled with fascinating, surprising episodes in the secret life of the potato – the légume supérieur – all written with entertaining charm.
Those early years are important to her sense of (golden) wonder. It is in childhood that we first fall in love. With crisps. While Crunch begins as a confession to a lifelong obsession – “I have always and I will always love crisps” – it takes her on a worldwide sojourn to the myriad shores that have tasted the splendour of the thinly-sliced fried spud. She speaks of Hula Hoops, Frazzles and Skips too, because chasing potato purity is anathema to the salty snack world. All are welcome, none denied.
From the dawn of the potato back in Latin America to its zenith (Crisp Sandwich Day, October 25th), Whittle reveals numerous astonishing details along the way. Our love and our need for salt, for instance, and how the brain understands saltiness. I’m pretty sure our very brains love crisps too, though I’m not an actual neurologist.
We hear of champion crisp eaters, crisp sandwich cafés and a delightful short story about a man who will only eat crisps.
We even learn of the spud’s sex life. I knew potatoes were sexy, but I had never thought of them of asexual. Whilst covered in mud, these tubers of temptation form themselves from themselves, the dirty, lovely, mucky little scamps.
But what of the future? Here, Whittle puts the reader’s mind at ease by revealing how secure the world’s seed banks are. Peru’s International Potato Center is earthquake proof, for instance. Norway’s Seed Vault is built to survive a falling asteroid, so we can all sleep safely at night, knowing the spuds are safe.
The future’s bright. The future’s crispy.
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Image credit: Paul Reich
