Baked Pea Crisps

It all started with the humble crisp.  A thin sheet of potato deep fried beyond recognition, dusted with salt and sealed into bags for easier sale.  But of course we couldn't leave it at that could we?  God no!  One of the most unfortunate characteristics of the human race is our inevitable desire to take something good and continually improve it until it becomes a ghastly misshapen nightmare.  Think iPhones or Star Wars.

So it should come as no surprise that some misbegotten fool, may a forgiving posterity shelter his name from the execration of future generations, came up with the idea of the sweet potato crisp.  This was just like the original potato crisp only worse.  However the creation of this wretched sliver of unpalatability was only half the damage done.  With the floodgates thus opened random maniacs the world over (but predominantly in those parts with an overabundance of food) started throwing whatever vegetable was nearest to hand into a fryer and marketing the consequences.

Of course it wasn't long before the humble fryer was replaced with other means of reducing vegetables to dried husks of their former selves ostensibly in a healthier (or at least less actively fatal) fashion.  All of which explains why this morning as I laboured nobly in the service of my employers I was sustaining myself with a packet of baked pea crisps.  The packaging was at pains to tout the healthiness of the product contained within by comparison with regular potato crisps.  There are many things healthier than regular potato crisps including, quite possibly, smallpox  The packet boasted that the baked pea crisps had less sodium than regular potato crisps.  Sodium has less sodium than regular potato crisps for gods sake. 

Naturally the pea crisps are gluten free because I honestly think the makers would have been taken out and shot if they had ever considered anything else.  They also have less fat and are baked not fried.  Indeed no more healthy example of reducing a vegetable to a wizened remnant of its original self could possibly be found.  The package also notes that it was marketed under licence and the strictest quality control of a company in Japan.  What does "strictest quality control" mean when we're talking about baked pea crisps? 

"Is that a baked pea crisp?"
"I think so."
"Well, before we sell it you'd better be certain."

So what were the baked pea crisps like?  Well not bad actually, they tasted mainly of salt and very vaguely of peas.  They were sort of long, greenish ovoids and enjoyment was greatly enhanced if you could keep out of your mind the thought that it looked rather like you were eating Yoda's fingers.