Crisps v Chips

I think I'm just old, but I find it kinda cumbersome to mentally translate betwen "chips" and "crisps" here in the US. I have to really think about it every time.

At home, obviously, chips are potatoes sliced up and fried, and crisps are potatoes sliced up and ... hang on! No, chips are potates cut up into rectangular-ish chunks, and deep fried. And crisps are potatoes cut into wafer thin slices and deep fried.

Crisps are made by Tayto. (By law in Ireland, 50% of your crisp intake must be Tayto.) I like Cheese & Onion. Also Salt & Vinegar. I can't stand Ready Salted. There are all sorts of poncey flavours like "balsamic vinegar and dead sea rock salt from the time of Jesus". Nah.

There are also abominations (albeit very, very tasty abominations) like Pringles. They're not made from sliced spud. Rather they're made from re-formed mushed spud. Nice, but weird.

Chips are what you get in a chippie. With fish. Or in a chinese restaurant. (I know!!!) They're great with salt and vinegar. (Or mayonnaise ... I'm weird!) Again, they should be made from directly sliced spud, not reconstituted mush. Also, they should be fairly chunky. Not the skinny waif chips you get in McDonalds.

Anyway, here in the USA, crisps are called chips. And chips are called fries.

Chips (I'd call them crisps) are mostly similar, but there are much more of the re-constituted mush variety (like pringles) than "normal" crisps. There's a brand/company called Frito that does reasonably good crisps. (They call them chips.)

I haven't really had fries (I'd call them chips) here. Maybe with a burger sometimes. They're usually very good. They're often made from directly sliced spud. They're often reasonably thick.

Oh, sometimes you see places advertising "Fish and Chips", which is what you'd expect. Must try that sometime!

I don't eat much in the way of either chips or crisps, so I'm not bothered.