I’m reading a book about the history of crisps. It’s by Natalie Whittle and it’s called Crunch. Unlike crisps, it’s nourishing – fascinating to learn of the human endeavour, all the science that’s gone into them. But, just like crisps, it’s also comforting – in that it’s good to know I’m not the only one with such strong feelings about them.

I once heard a fellow broadcaster denigrated as the kind of presenter who just wanted to do phone-ins about listeners’ favourite crisps. I knew where he was coming from. You could do a phone-in on this subject every day of the week and never run out of contributors. Because surely everyone has their own relationship with crisps, their own personal crisp journey.

My own started with being cruelly denied access to all but one flavour as a child. My mum had very strong views on artificial flavourings and “all that rubbish”, as she put it. So ready salted was all I knew. The memory of the moment I realised what I’d been missing out on is so clear that there is an almost palpable specificity to it.

I was on a day trip organised by West Bromwich Albion supporters’ club to Portsmouth to see HMS Albion. I vaguely recall seeing a helicopter being lowered down into the ship. You’d think that spectacle would have made more of an impression on an eight-year-old lad than the packet of crisps his nan produced on the train journey there. But no, even the colour of the bag they were in quite staggered me. Orange! Hitherto I’d known only red. Mind blown, as nobody ever said back then. “They’re roast chicken flavour,” said my nan, clocking my widening eyes. Astonished and thrilled in equal measure, I popped one in my mouth and was transported to a whole new world. What a day.

The only downside of reading this book is that my crisp intake has gone from occasional treat status straight up to gluttonous. At some level, I’m telling myself it’s for research purposes. But it’s gone too far. Yesterday, at Leigh Delamere services (westbound), feeling an urgent need to degrease my mouth after eating some unpardonably oily junk food, I picked up a bag of pickled onion Monster Munch and found them to be the perfect palate cleanser. As with the book, I highly recommend.

Adrian Chiles is a Guardian columnist

© The Guardian