Are crisps important? I should explain at the outset that I might not be the best person to judge. Since the 1990s, I have only eaten Kettle Chips, as they are confusingly called, not being chips at all. Before that, I was loyal to Phileas Fogg, a brand whose existence I had forgotten until agreeably reminded of it by this highly esoteric book.

Phileas Fogg Mignons Morceaux (croutons really) were heaven – until one day I ate a whole packet at once. Cumulatively, the flavour was acrid. I can taste it now. Natalie Whittle liked Mignons Morceaux – now discontinued – too. Indeed, it appears there is no crisp she has not tried. She has measured out her life in crisp packets.

According to Whittle, crisps have a mystical power. It’s no use Americans trying to eat British crisps: they can’t taste ‘the bits that aren’t inside the packet’. Crisps live in the memory like nothing else. The highlight of her childhood camping holiday to Brittany in the 1980s was sampling French