“I think animal testing is a terrible idea;
they get all nervous and give the wrong answers.”
Stephen Fry, A Bit of Fry And Laurie

We all have our moments of delusion, where we think of the ‘What If’ of our own little universes, where we play a role in our head that exaggerates the mundane practice that we are doing. Whether it be imagining ourselves as a rockstar as we sing in the shower, a top chef as we prepare the simplest of meals or that sexy bartender serving a divine cocktail while we entertain guests with over-the-top mixing.

For me, the ability to play as crackpot Dr Mindbender, as deranged GLaDOS or as a freak scientist who understands that “Nazi Science sneers” at everything, is often too great to pass up.

One of the great things about my current work is how beneficial it is to my brand of scientific research. My brand, of course, being entirely random, inconsequential and poorly measured research. Being based on hospital grounds and with close access to doctors and emergency medical staff means that any problems during experiments can be dealt with quickly and quietly, and in addition the current personnel in the area provides a great source of victimunteers for test subjects.

In fact, for my most recent experiment the test subjects actually showed willing and eager for the most part, showing only signs of reluctance in small doses – and often with great reason. You see my most recent endeavour was designed to monitor exposure to substances and materials that I was uncertain of the hazard level for. There was the ominous thought of fatalities and incapacity as a result, but experimentation was needed in the name of SCIENCE!

I have commented previously on the materials that my test subjects were exposed to, and though I had previously exposed myself to a significant dosage of one of the materials, I had yet to further study the effects of all of them. I refer, of course, to the new six flavours of Walkers crisps.

This was to be a thorough test of the tastes and reactions to the new flavours, so I had a number of considerations to take care of, including subjects, resources and measuring.

I decided beforehand that just testing the flavours myself would not be good enough, that I’d need to test them on others to get conclusive feedback. I’d considered shipping the items to test subjects in North America, however timing the tests and pure logistics made that too difficult to carry out – there was also the fear of not being able to pass customs. Luckily, as I already mentioned, my colleagues were ready to assist me. My only regret is that I didn’t have time to get them orange jumpsuits and heart monitors or tattoo barcodes on their cheek under their eye. It’s a small regret, but I can’t deny it is there.

I ended up with seven victimunteers, with additional bodies taking samples as we conducted research. It is only due to the dynamics of the office I am in, but all the test subjects were female. I am frequently outnumbered. The test subjects will be referred to as LD, JQ, EC, RK, SS, AC and AS. I also subjected myself to the materials tested, because in the event of one flavour giving access to superpowers I wanted to be in with a shot.

Resources was simple, because after having to wait and search for so long, now the crisps were available in assorted variety packs. However, although the packs were supplying six individual packets of crisps, each only contained three of the flavours. Wilkinsons came to the rescue though, with a deal of “2 for £2″. Truly, without this deal my test subjects would never have been submitted to some of the horrors presented to them.

Measuring gave me a tricky ride. If I went in to too much detail then it would be difficult to keep peoples interest up, and because I was passing stuff around in work I didn’t want to distract from duty and be found out for carrying out experiments during shift. If, on the other hand, I did not provide enough detail then I would have nothing here to comment on. It is quite the dilemma.

The flavours under review:
* Cajun Squirrel
* Duck and Hoisin Sauce
* Fish and Chips
* Chocolate and Chili
* Builders Breakfast
* Onion Bhaji

I settled for simplicity and a happy medium, composing a ‘smiley face’ tick system for initial feeling and a commentary box. The smiley face system comprised of six options to choose from: Best Flavour Ever; It’s Pretty Good; It’s Ok; It’s Not Good; It’s Gross; I Need Medical Attention!

If you are interested, then you can see the original document here.

Cajun Squirrel

LD: (It’s Ok) Skanky aftertaste!
JQ: (It’s Ok) I’m not keen on meat flavour crisps
EC: (It’s Not Good) Tastes of nowt
RK: (It’s Gross) Keep thinking of little squirrels up trees!
SS: (It’s Not Good) Appear bland at first but leave aftertaste
AC: (It’s Pretty Good) tastes like chicken
AS: (It’s Not Good) No

When I discussed the Cajun Squirrel crisps with AC, she said she could taste chicken whereas all I’d tasted previously was a mix of pungent spices, however trying again and leaving it a while before crunching through, I could taste what she meant. There definately seemed to be a background flavour that was not unlike Walkers ‘Roast Chicken’ crisps, however the spices very much hid the base in my opinion.

Duck and Hoisin Sauce

LD: (It’s Pretty Good) Quite nice, quite like duck!
JQ: (It’s Not Good) Strange sensation!
EC: (I Need Medical Attention!) Help! Have tasted better things from food stall at 4am in Penang!
RK: (It’s Gross) No, the girls all feed them here. Can’t eat them
SS: (It’s Gross/I Need Medical Attention!) Very greasy taste
AC: (It’s Ok) tastes like poppadoms + onion salad
AS: (It’s Not Good) No I really wouldn’t like to have them again

It should be noted that we frequently get ducks coming to our offices’ kitchen window, so a duck flavoured crisp was sure to go down well amongst the bird lovers. I found the taste to be rather bland, with just a little kick for the hoisin, but nothing very special. If we happened to have had a sample of real duck and hoisin from a chinese restaurant them I’m pretty sure we would not have known what the crisp was trying to be.

Fish and Chips

LD: (I Need Medical Attention!) Disgusting! foul! Gross! Nearly puked!
JQ: (It’s Not Good) dis-gust-ting
EC: (It’s Gross) tastes + smells like old knickers!
RK: (I Need Medical Attention!) Horrible, I can still taste them, even after the onion bhaji
SS: (It’s Ok) The best so far at 3rd
AC: (I Need Medical Attention!) VILE!!
AS: (It’s Gross) Definately not! Actually want to be sick. Mouthful of fish.

Fish and Chips was the first of the flavours to require an immediate evac from the assessment area, when LD was very quickly overwhelmed with the taste. Now, the particular test subject is not fond of fish at the best of times, but I can’t help thinking that Walkers did not make this any easier on her. The Fish and Chips flavour tastes to me a lot like the grease the gets everywhere after a portion of fish and chips from the chippy, it tastes vaguely of the food that it oozed off of and may have trapped fish juice in it, but the better flavours are long since disappeared. In fact, you may as well suck the bag the chips came in to get the same flavour.

Chocolate and Chilli

LD: (It’s Pretty Good) Very nice, nicest so far!
JQ: (It’s Not Good) Tastes like dust with spice in it!!
EC: (It’s Not Good) not enough chocolate to get fat on, not enough chili to get ‘hot’ on
RK: (It’s Gross)
SS: (It’s Gross) Disgusting
AC: (It’s Gross) JUST WRONG!
AS: (It’s Ok) mmm ook I surposeee

One of the most frequent comments was that this just seemed a weird concept for a flavour, with a general opinion of tasting either a lot of chocolate or a lot of chili. Personally, the idea of chocolate and crisps together doesn’t interest me at all, in fact the main reason I’d choose one is that I don’t want the other, and to paraphrase Matt of X-Entertainment, I don’t want to be thinking about chocolate when I’m eating crisps. As it stands, I could barely taste any chili and the nearest memory to the chocolate it was describing was the time a friend tried to make a hot chocolate drink by disolving a small chocolate bar in boiling water.

Builders Breakfast

LD: (It’s Not Good) ?? Weird!
JQ: (It’s Not Good) Too much egg
EC: (I Need Medical Attention!) tastes like it has come out of a hens bum!
RK: (It’s Pretty Good) Good 2nd Best
SS: (It’s Pretty Good)
AC: (It’s Pretty Good) Every crisp tastes different.
AS: (It’s Ok/It’s Not Good) Rather have the builder

According to AC, different crisps held different flavours. Unfortunately, neither EC or I had the joy of encountering that, as we both got a mouthful of rotten egg flavoured crisp, and both of us had to urgently withdraw from the test area. Seriously, I had to actually go to the local ‘facilities’ to spit out. It was all I could do not to throw up.

This was quite the devisive flavour, with a huge leap between those who hated it and felt repulsion and those who were willing to finish the packet. I view these crisps as either an attempt to make Bertie Botts every-flavour bean (including the grossest kind) in crisp form, an attempt to make a practical joke crisp packet, a factory workers attempt to cripple the company from the inside or as proof that Walkers are venturing in to the chemical and biological warfare market.

Onion Bhaji

LD: (It’s Pretty Good) Good flavour
JQ: (It’s Ok) Me no like!
EC: (It’s Not Good) Wouldn’t like it with my dhansak!
RK: (It’s Pretty Good) This is the best one
SS: (Best Flavour Ever)
AC: (Best Flavour Ever) Best out of them all
AS: (It’s Ok/It’s Not Good) Was ok

This went over fairly well, and I liked it a fair bit, much more than the majority of other flavours (I’d probably tie it with Cajun Squirrel, though none of the flavours are anything overly special). The onion bhaji isn’t too strong tasting and is a lot more mellow than the usual Pickled Onion flavour, as there is no vinegar tang. It’s probably the closest to what it is trying to taste like, though it doesn’t quite hit it somehow.

Today’s Experiment…Success!

For full results, the completed sheets are here.