While COVID has certainly cut into my alcohol consumption, no, I’m not going Dry January. I mean why would you pick one of the longer months of the year to give up wine? If I ever do try a dry month (stop laughing), it would be February and not in a leap year. But I have given up on something this month: crisps.
Those of you who know me well know that I consider potato chips/crisps a food group unto themselves, and one that, if one looks closely, must be somewhere near the base on Canada’s Food Pyramid. More specifically, Walkers Cheese & Onion Crisps are my all-time favourites. I could give up chocolate, or sugar, or bread, long before I would consider letting go of my crisps habit. But, it was an indulgent December (God, my cousin is a good cook), so I thought I’d forego crisps for the month of January.
The options to substitute are limited: Brits don’t eat a lot of popcorn or pretzels. I could cheat and go after some Quavers, or Skips, or Wotsits, but that feels wrong. Yes, I do know about carrot sticks, and cucumber slices, and apple wedges. And I do eat a fairly healthy diet – certainly during my little bout of COVID, I’ve been living on homemade veggie soups. But around four o’clock each afternoon, I feel like something crunchy and munchy. So this month I’ve been having pretzels, popcorn, and peanuts, all of which I normally eat in much smaller quantities than I do potato chips. Sigh. If I’d known I was going to have COVID, I wouldn’t have picked this month to give up my favourite treat. Ah well, only 13 days to go.
But typing this has made me think – over the next few weeks, I should share some of the typical snack foods that you find in Britain. No Bits & Bites, or Ketchup Chips, or Orville Redenbacher here. Wait until you hear about Twiglets. Seriously.