In the land of salt and vinegar chips, it’s steep competition, and people have very different ideas about what constitutes the strongest and the best.
There’s nothing like an eye-wateringly vinger-y ‘salt and vinegar’ chip to get you going. A ‘love it or hate it’ party favourite, it turns out that people get very up in arms about which is the strongest.
The debate comes after someone on Reddit, who believes themselves to be a chip connoisseur, posted a ranking of Australia’s salt and vinegar chip varieties from strongest to weakest taste.
Topping off the list was the budget-friendly Aldi Sprinters, followed by the less budget-friendly but extremely delicious Red Rock Deli chips in the bougie flavour ‘sea salt and balsamic vinegar’. Bringing up third place was an Aussie favourite, the Smith’s chips.
Next was Aldi’s more upmarket chip brand ‘Blackstone’, followed by Kettle, Natural Chip Co., French Fries , Thins, Tyrrell’s, Pringles and Vege Chips.
Like what you see? Sign up to our bodyandsoul.com.au newsletter for more stories like this.
The poster, who calls themselves a ‘proud Australian’, did post the chip-testing methodology on the website alongside the final rankings.
“All these chips were brought on the same day by myself and were eaten by myself and two others,” the redditor said.
They tasted each chip and ranked it ‘low, medium and high’, with the exception of the French Fries which were judged in a handful. They then tallied the results of which had the most ‘highs’, and ‘lows’ in order to rank them.
A lively debate ensued about the rankings, in particular the choice to put Kettle so far down the list.
“Smiths is wayyyy more chill. I go for Kettle when my mouth can handle Kettle’s intensity. Smiths when I want the rich flavour but not the skin stripping,” one person commented.
People also took the opportunity to point out that the Pringles carton was blue, rather than the flavour’s usual purple colour, here in Australia.
“Blue = Plain (salted), Magenta = Salt and Vinegar, Green = Chicken, Sun Gold = BBQ (and) Yellow = Cheese and Onion,” one commented. While another responded, “this is God’s law”.
Interestingly, chip packets in other countries do not follow this same colour code. For example, in the UK salt and vinegar often goes in green packages, blue for cheese and onion and red for salted. The pink colour is usually reserved for a special delicacy over there called ‘prawn cocktail’.
Sometimes this changes and the salt and vinegar goes in blue packaging, and it is often blue in the US, so this could explain why the Pringles packet is blue and not purple.
Regardless, we’re sure that the definitive nature of these rankings could be debated until the end of time, as the strength of the salt and vinegar flavour is something very close to lovers of these chips’ hearts.
Dining and Cooking