Life of Riley

There cannot be many foodstuffs which are as eagerly anticipated and satisfying as a bag of potato crisps.

This is a strong opinion that I maintain even now that I am well into my 5th decade. I should perhaps abstain from eating them as much as I do on health and dietary grounds but it is difficult to give up such a tasty and gratifying snack.(Personal Best- 5 packets in succession). I have stopped reading the nutritional information, depressing as it is, and indeed advocate an alternative form of labelling in the form of increasingly smiley faces to indicate the expected levels of pure happiness, well being and contentment.

It is true that a little bit of what you fancy does you good, well unless you are into Russian Roulette or equally and potentially drastic endeavours and activities. My dedication and loyalty as a consumer to the crisp manufacturing sector is in spite of the disappointment and horror that I experienced when younger in a supervised visit and tour around our local potato crisp factory.

As an indication of how long ago this was I can remember that a standard bag of ready salted was two new pence. The packets were, granted, smaller than those currently available. They were also purchased in quite brittle materials and not the high sheen, foil lined for freshness type that we are used to today. There was also quite a limited choice in flavours with the most exotic being confined to salt and vinegar and cheese and onion and not the bewildering range of more recent times.

Most larger towns seemed to have their own crisp manufacturers and with no one concern dominating to the extent of the Mega Corporation that is Walkers and their subsidiaries. The factory I visited was run by Rileys in Scunthorpe. It was a non descript industrial shed on a large commercial estate. As soon as you stepped off the bus there was the unmistakable odour of hot cooking oil. This soon became overwhelming and for many weeks after the smell persisted in my hair and clothing even after many baths, showers and laundry cycles.

The production line was short and noisy. A large covered delivery bay was strewn with soil encrusted potatoes which were tipped from vehicles and unrestrained from rolling about and becoming detached from the main large mound. Stray spuds were rounded up by welly boot and skillfully kicked up onto the pile. A further damp, musty and organic smell seemed to be in competition with the dominant odour. From the unceremonious pile of spuds a group of workers shovelled them up jnto what resembled a large washing machine where they were bumped, ground and swilled to remove the caked on debris of field and farm.

The process also abraded the coarse outer skins to leave the bright white flesh exposed to the elements. The process was accelerated at this stage when any delay would lead to the discolouring of the now raw material.

The next stage was fearful to behold . A mass of whirling and razor sharp blades swiftly and efficiently lacerated the pale nuggets of lumpy potato into thin slivers.A few were manually finished by a team of ladies whom you would do your best to avoid on a dark evening, if they were taking their blades home with them after their shift. This was the money making part with a single spud, of negligible individual value, being made into many hundreds of value added slices to eventually be sold by weight at a significant mark-up and profit margin.

Into the bubbling cauldron of antique, dull and cloudy oil went the sliced discs with an automated quick searing cooking process before being lifted out in true fat fryer style to drain and dry.

The flavouring was perhaps the most disappointing and unremarkable thing to experience. The cooked crisps were segregated into three smaller production lines and more workers with more shovels simply threw on the dry salt and the brightly coloured powdered chemicals that simulated the experience of the required natural taste very effectively.

The manner in which the crisps were handled throughout the process readily explained the regular discovery of various foreign bodies and debris at the bottom of the packet at that last moment when it would be up-ended in order to extricate the last possible fragments from the tight inside corners.

However, by then it was too late to prevent the bits and pieces of non-potato based entities from entering the digestive system.