I couldn’t believe when I saw this in a pub in Camden. They’re crisps, dammit. Not chips. They’re only chips in America. Chips in the U.K. are french fries (a phrase I’ve also seen on menus).
London photo: pernicious American influence
share and enjoy
Let’s call the whole thing off. :)
Kettle Brand Chips is an American company, that expanded to Norwich back in 1988, where the company is called Kettle Foods. Near as I can tell, they’ve always labeled their product “Kettle Chips”. See here, about halfway down the page: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/sep/01/crisps-british
I just realized, that link goes to the US edition of the Guardian. lol
Actually we Dutch also call crisps chips. It’s probably the post-war American influence at play, but still. Go to any Dutch supermarket and you’ll find rows of chips, including Kettle chips.
Also, a kettle is something you boil water in and don’t get me started on peppercorn.
i don’t understand your argument.
They are kettle brand chips. The packet formerly had a cooking pot shaped like a cauldron on it. (alternately, my argument could be incomprehensible because it’s wrong.) (PS I just noticed on the packet that the chips are rated 18+ only.)
Big, open, cauldron-like iron pots are also called kettles. It is a really old dialect usage. Probably pre-hanoverian that stuck in the colonies. It is why “pot calling the kettle black” works.
thank you. i was going to post the whole dictionary definition of kettle and its usage, but then i thought …”eh. why bother?” so glad you stepped in.
My pleasure. It is a little obscure, especially in England, I think. Except for geologists…kettle holes and all that, ya know?
Thank you.
Wow…so that explains why I got what I got when I ordered “Fish and Chips” in London! I wish they stop asking me if I want “salad” when I get a sandwich….
uhm, what did you get? and what’s the big deal about a “salad” (and why the quotes>)?
This was ten years ago, but “salad” was just lettuce on my sandwich (or “sammich” in PA). It was eye-opening, too, to see takeaway (not “take out”) wine in cans. Yum!
Also a classic example of adjective disease: “salt and pepper” isn’t good enough, it has to be “sea salt” and “crushed black peppercorns”.
Sea salt is better than the usual table stuff. And crushed peppercorns are better than that horrid powdered black pepper you find in the UK. :->
On crisps, where all the terpenes have had plenty of time to boil away and the salt’s probably been re-crystallised for spraying?
I’ll take your word for it, but I can’t tell the difference between these and normal crisps.