We visited a farm shop, the Rhug estate near Bala in Wales. We’re not really wealthy enough to shop there regularly, but we call in for coffee sometimes on the way back from the Welsh coast. Or should I call it the Welch coast, since our trips are always focussed on history and we had been to Carnarfon Castle where I learned that this was the proper way to refer to the country that borders England on its west side. Every day is a school day when you spend your free time around historic sites!
So I’m not a person that eats junk food regularly, and about a year ago I gave up eating crisps, which have been my Kryptonite for as long as I can remember, but on a whim I decided to buy a posh bag of Roast Beef and Mustard flavoured thick fried crisps. I left it a few days before eating them, almost like I was testing my ability to resist. I have no desire to give in to my desires and violate my previous decision to resist my urge to fill my face with this non-food stuff. A crisp is a thin slice of fried potato, it contains saturated fats that are not good for you, flavourings that are not good for you, MSG that is not good for you, seed oils which are likely not good for you (inflammation), salt, and it is packed with carbohydrates which are in the form of starch. There is nothing about a crisp, or many crisps, that in any way satisfies hunger. You could eat ten bags of crisps in a row and you will still be hungry, and probably feel a little sick.
However, the merits of the product as a food put aside… I was struck by what the flavour did to me, what I felt while I was consuming. I experienced a vivid emotional link between the me of now, this 50 year old, and the 16 year old me that used to visit Simpsons convenience store in Antrim some evenings and buy a pint of full fat milk and two bags of Brannigan’s crisps. One of Roast beef and Mustard, and the other was Smoked Ham and Pickle. As I munched them now I knew what that guy, the young me, felt as he sat in an extremely cold bedroom in 1990. We had little in the way of heating and a massive house. I sat on a high backed chair while watching On-Digital TV (a fore-runner of free view I think). I remembered the James Whale Radio Show, the Word with Terry Christian, Trans World Sports and a few other shows I devoured at the time. I remembered the blanket around my knees and the gloves on my hands sometimes too. I lived above the Kitchen, so my room was a little warmer than either of my brothers, which were above one of the lounges (there were 3), so I wondered how they coped, but we didn’t spend a lot of time talking at that time. Brothers can be strange that way.
Isn’t it weird the way a smell or a taste can bring back a memory that you don’t hold in the easily retrievable part of your consciousness? I could not have told you the first thing about that time if you had asked, but as soon as I opened this packet of crisps I was right back there in my mind. It’s almost as if it’s all still in there but you need some prompts to be able to grab at it. A smell, a taste, these seem to make the memory pop back out with strong emotion, yet something visual seems foggy and vague. I am no scientist so I don’t have the answer, but I bet there is one and I intend to find out. Maybe I’ll write a follow up piece to this one…
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