Culture | Salt of the earth

The British take their crisps more seriously than any other nation

No other snack bridges the class divide in the same way

Photograph: Alamy

GERMANS OPT for döner kebab flavour; South Koreans like theirs sprinkled with “honey butter” powder; and Canadians nibble on a dill pickle iteration. Britons prefer cheese and onion—but it is a close-run thing. According to some estimates, around 6bn packets of crisps are sold in Britain each year. Whenever Brits are feeling peckish, they reach for the low-effort, high-sodium snack, as Natalie Whittle, a journalist, observes in “Crunch”, a tasty history of the foodstuff Americans insist on calling “potato chips”.

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