When plastic bags containing potato chips came on the market in the sixties, our fun was just to eat the salty chips with oil stuck on its covering, and imagine that we were enjoying it. But what made the bag stand out most was the crackling sound of crisp, dry chips that felt good. We continued to eat the chips and break them down between our teeth, licking our greasy and salty fingers. Finally, we would wipe our mouths with the back of our hands catch our stomachs from overeating. They were unhealthy potato chips, commercialized and toxic. But, we had no other amusement, and that was all we could do to get rid of the boredom in those days. The most enjoyable memory was from the sight of a pile of chips spread on a tray and sold at Sar-e pol Tajrish. It was neither coated nor hygienic. It tasted like burnt oil, but it was salty and delicious!
Potato chips have a long history of their own. More than 150 years ago, it was first made in a restaurant in New York City, USA, and its taste attracted people’s interest. But it took a long time for us here to come to know these chips and get caught up in the salty taste and pleasure of eating them.
In the 1930s, there were sandwich shops in Istanbul Street, Naderi, and Lalehzar in Tehran that poured a handful of mashed potatoes over fried sausages, or cutlets and mutton kernels, to make it tastier. Sometimes the tomato sauce was also boiled. This food had many customers. The potato puree was different from potato chips, but it seemed like a prelude to getting used to the crisps we found a decade later and fell in love with its delicacy.
Today’s crisps came on the market in the 1940s, but because people did not like the taste so much, they did not buy them and did not know why they should eat dried and salted potatoes, while our fries are a thousand times tastier. Our taste was not yet accustomed to fast food in those years, and we did not care for just anything that had arrived from abroad. The chips of the forties did not have the packaging, and they were put in a bag and sold for five rials. It was accompanied by a bottle of soda for five rials. If we ordered sausages, it would cost three tomans.
We spent more or less two decades with the same packet until the sixties when the bulk, high-fat and salty chips became our discovery. It was as if we had discovered the most fantastic food on earth. Nothing could stand in our way, and we went everywhere with these nylon bags with cardboard stuck on them, and stained with oil, which clearly spoke for themselves about their hygiene. A small pack of potato chips did not cost more than ten tomans. One or two years later, the price increased, and before collecting bulk chips, it cost 20 tomans. It was worth it, and it was low-cost entertainment.
It took another decade for our first chips factory to open in the 1970s, giving out local chips with pretty looking packages and a little healthier. Since then, chips with different flavors of onion and parsley, onion and cheese, tomato, vinegar, tandoori, and all other flavors have been produced and marketed. It is up to us to choose what taste we want to commit suicide with!
Another food combination discovery is yoghurt and potato chips, especially shallot yoghurt which is great with potato chips. We have many justifications for it and say that the protein in yoghurt makes up for the harms of chips, which disrupts body’s hormones. We do not know how true this statement is. But the simple way is to stop eating crisps so that we do not need to philosophize. But we do not do that. Instead, we make a bowl of potato chips and yogurt “with beautiful and modern designs and excellent quality” and sing its song: “From our days with potato chips / from the days of potato chips with us! From confusion in a job interview / from the permission to reject any request!»
Eating potato chips is not healthy. Is there anyone who does not know this? Doctors say it is carcinogenic and pathogenic; It disrupts the nervous system and if we overeat, it will do us harm. With this in mind, as it is our nervous system is already damaged. Why should we make things worse by overeating chips? Can’t we make home-fried potatoes instead of chips? (Of course, less salt, less oil) is it not healthier and tastier? But we, well, don’t want to make extra work for ourselves!
We do not want to be bothered with buying, washing and peeling potatoes. And then, it should be fried, the frying pan should heated, the oil splashes on our apron, then washing the apron, and all this gets on our nerves, more than eating potato chips! We make this excuse for ourselves, but have no idea what harm we do to ourselves by eating potato chips and fast food.
* Using: Matilda website; A short part of the song “From our days next to potato chips” composed by Mehdi Mousavi on the “Kite” website.
