A crisp sandwich is a private and personal endeavour. In my experience (and I have considerable experience in this particular area) it is usually eaten alone in the kitchen, often over the sink. It is deliberately unsophisticated, the ultimate fast food: simple, salty, satisfying. It is a snack that speaks of the person you are, rather than the person you want to be.
I firmly believe that no food should be a guilty pleasure, but I’ll concede that crisps sandwiched between two heavily buttered slices of bread does not scream nutritional balance. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, a recent poll (admittedly commissioned by Walkers, which probably has some potato skin in the game) found that the average UK adult eats 35 crisp sandwiches a year – implying a collective total of over two billion, which makes me oddly proud of my country.
Purists will tell you that a crisp sandwich should contain only crisps. But for many, crisps are a general-purpose ingredient, deployed frequently and liberally to give other sandwiches – cheese and pickle, ham and mustard, chicken salad – crunch.
Structural integrity is an important consideration. The bread must be sufficiently robust to contain the crisps once squished, and stand up to the vigorous application of a butter knife. But it can’t be chewy or you’ll lose your crisps the moment you bite into it. Posh bread – ciabatta, sourdough and so on – is a non-starter. Fancy crisps don’t work either: they are too thick, too crunchy, too much like hard work. Thick white sliced bread is the only real acceptable choice, with classic fried potato crisps. (This is no place for a corn snack, thank you very much.)
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