Junk Food Nation, if you know me, you know I listen to sports radio and watch sports television all the time. I’ve forced the Junk Food Gal to watch ESPN’s 30 for 30s, E:60s documentaries, Hard Knocks specials, NFL Network one-hour shows, etc.  There’s nothing I like better than to read fantasy baseball advice at one site, and then go to yet another site to read and confirm the same advice.  So you can bet I was hurting while abroad and cut off from my favorite sports media outlets.

In Ireland, unsurprisingly, everything was soccer and rugby.  All the time. Eight to nine channels devoted to it.  I know soccer is the world’s sport, and I enjoy it too – but I couldn’t help but roll my eyes as EVERY SINGLE CHANNEL I FLIPPED TO WAS SOCCER.  And then, once in a BLUE MOON there would be some B-grade footage of what was going on in the NBA playoffs.  Horrible footage. I was watching Lebron shoot a jumper through the glass of a fishtank.

Anyways, I thought I’d just throw out some quick responses to two important sports news items that I missed while cut off from Bristol, CT:

1) Mariano Rivera tears every single muscle in his body during practice: UGH.  As a Yankees fan (hell, as a baseball fan), this news really sucked.  Even Yankee haters I know all cringed when they heard this news.  Arguably the greatest closer of all time in baseball, this year was going to be Mo’s last year, he was going to retire at the top. Now that’ll have to wait another year. Let’s hope he goes out on a decent note, ala Chipper Jones, and not ala Mark Prior.

2) Bryce Harper debut’s for the Nationals: Bryce Harper, the former No. 1 pick, the arrogant, brash outfielder for the Washington Nationals finally debuted while I was gone. He has a weird semi-mohawk/mullet going on. He wears eye black on 40% of his face. And he’s only 19 years old, the youngest player in the majors. Did you hear me? 19!! What were YOU doing when you were 19??? I don’t even wanna think about my 19 year old days. I’m pretty sure weed was involved, but I’m not sure.

Quick note before I get into today’s junk food: Yesterday I reviewed Jaffa Cakes, and apparently a UK based food blog recently did a side-by-side comparison of 12 different brands of Jaffa Cakes! Read about it here.

Today’s junk food: Walkers Prawn Cocktail Potato Chips!

A Walkers Promo poster

I’d been fascinated with Walkers chips ever since my friend Nevin gave me a bag of the Smoky Bacon variety.  On this blog, I’ve only really talked about them a couple times because I never had access. But in Ireland, Walkers and their competitor Taytos were EVERYWHERE.

To recap, Walkers Potato Crisps in the UK/Ireland are basically the same as Lays Potato Chips here in the states; Walkers is owned by the Frito-Lay Corporation.  Walkers and Lays Potato Chips share many similarities in the packaging; notably, the big yellow circle with red sash logo.

We have interesting flavors here in the US (Classic BLT comes to mind) but we have our standard falvors: sour cream and onion, BBQ, etc. Walkers has some “standard” flavors too, but to me they are wacky as hell.  Today’s variety, Walkers Prawn Cocktail Potato Chips, is one of these “standard” flavors.

Walkers Prawn Cocktail Potato Chips: The Money Shot

That’s right, folks, Walkers Prawn Cocktail Potato Chips.  Prawn cocktail.  Wow. What the hell is in this pink bag? I thought this was an unusual flavor, until I saw this:

Pringles on the bandwagon!

PRINGLES TOO?  I guess in the UK and Ireland, Prawn Cocktail is a standard flavor. My head is spinning. At least neither the Pringles can nor the Walkers bag had big shrimp shapes on the packaging.  That might’ve made me retch – and I love seafood too.

So...shrimp cocktail flavor? So pink...

I am really curious how these taste.  I’ve had “shrimp/prawn” chips before, but those were Asian-based. And they mainly tasted like salt and MSG.  But these Walkers Prawn Cocktail Potato Chips?? Hmm…skeptical.

No real indication of the flavor

Walkers Prawn Cocktail Potato Chips contain prawn cocktail seasoning.  O….k…. and the prawn cocktail seasoning contains “flavouring.”  What is this, the roll of stolen microfilm from the movie “The Rock”? Why is everything so vague and hidden???? ANSWER ME: DO THESE TASTE LIKE SHRIMP?

Light and crispy

As soon as I opened the bag of Walkers Prawn Cocktail Potato Chips, I knew exactly what they would taste like. Not prawns themselves – but prawn cocktail. Cocktail sauce. Holy shit. These were chips flavored with cocktail sauce.  These smelled faintly of tomato and horseradish.  My god.

Cocktail sauce flavored!!! WHOA

I placed a large fingerful of Walkers Prawn Cocktail Potato Chips in my mouth and chewed.  WOW.  These were….well, I dunno.  Walkers Crisps were MUCH crispier than US brand chips.  Extremely delicate and flaky while still maintaining good potato taste.  Really tasty on the potato chip front.

The cocktail sauce flavor? It was spot on!  VERY tangy, this was like (and I know this seems totally weird) taking a potato chip, dipping it full on into a bowl of cocktail sauce, and placing it in my mouth. That’s what it tasted like.  Tangy, tomato ketchup-y, and with a hint of the spicy horseradish.  I did not detect any smidge of shrimp flavor – my mouth was immediately overwhelmed by the tanginess of the cocktail sauce flavoring.  The taste was DEAD. ON.

The final question: Did I LIKE these? I DID, but these wouldn’t be my first choice in the future. The reason is simple – I don’t LOVE cocktail sauce.  But I have to imagine other countries look at our salsa flavored chips and think the same thing.  I probably wouldn’t buy these again, but that’s personal choice.  If you’re into cocktail sauce, you’ll LOVE these.

Thoughts? Hit me in the comments below or hit me on Twitter @junkfoodguy or on my Facebook Page.

Sincerely, Junk Food Guy