As keen devotees of ephemeral pop cultural trends, you will undoubtedly be aware of Walkers’ new series of flavour combinations, being marketed as “Do Us a Flavour”. The concept being that the flavour suggestions of six ordinary Britons have (out of over a million entries, apparently) been accepted by a judging panel which included celebrity molecular gastronomist Heston Blumenthal. And “only one can stay and become the next great Walkers flavour!” That’s another paradigm you’ll be familiar with. Reality TV meet reality manufacturing.
In the interests, then, of food science, it falls to Freaky Trigger to ask the question: when next we go down to the pub, will ANY of these flavours pass that ultimate test and be selected ahead of ready salted, salt & vinegar or Cheese Moments? I do so love Cheese Moments.
First up, randomly pulled out of a multi-pack bag, comes Builder’s Breakfast. The anthropomorphic graphic that adorns the pack suggests a smiling face of fried eggs, bacon and sausage, with a tomato for a nose. That’s a whole tomato. I can’t claim to be a builder myself, but I’ve had a fair few greasy spoon fry-ups in my time (rather shortening my time, I should say), and a whole tomato has not usually been part of the deal. It may have been chopped in half and fried or grilled. Sometimes it’s just a plum tomato from a can. A lot of the time, it stays on the plate at the end.
So is this what “Emma in Belper” might get were she to venture down to, say, Del’s Diner and ask for a number one set breakfast? The back of the pack suggests buttered toast as another of the key flavours (while omitting any mention of the sausage), and that certainly seems fair, if we’re not allowed to have a fried slice, or even some chips. And where are the beans? They hold a full English together: they are necessary. Surely this is no cooked breakfast fit for anyone, let alone a builder?
We should be thankful at least, that after that minor controversy a few years ago about their advertised salt content, Walkers aren’t serving us porridge with organic honey flavour.
So what is it like? On the nose, a strong smell of bacon, but not much else, to be honest. However, eggs dominate the initial bite, giving way to a very slight hint of tomato. That may be just imagined: you can get away with a lot by using a bit of suggestion. “Buttered toast” flavour may have been a bit of overreach, though: I’m not buying that, unless the eggs have been mopped up by it before that first bite. The interesting thing is that when the packet is gone and has been accidentally knocked on the floor by the next round of beers, the bacon flavour starts to assert itself. It’s a definite aftertaste, and it doesn’t go away quickly.
They’re not, then, unpleasant to eat. But a builder’s breakfast? Well, having polished off a packet, my girlfriend asked me to brush my teeth before she’d let me kiss her. So perhaps they can be called successful?