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Smith’s Salt ‘n’ Shake Crisps! Could there ever be a more British idea for a packet of crisps? The crisps that you salt yourself.
OK, at the end of the day all they were was regular old salted crisps, but there was something strangely compelling about opening a packet, rummaging around inside for the little blue sachet of salt, sprinkling said salt over the crisps, then holding the packet closed at the neck and furiously shaking it about in the hope that the salt might just reach the crisps at the bottom of the packet. It was just fun!
The brand was first launched in the 1920′s, making them one of the UK’s oldest types of crisps. They were apparently invented by Frank Smith and sold to pubs in the Cricklewood area of London. Prior to the invention of the “little blue bag of salt”, Smith had provided salt cellars for people to salt their crisps with, but the sachet came into existence simply because people were using too much salt and the cellars were emptied too quickly.
The little blue bag unsurprisingly became the identifier for these crisps, eventually being turned into a little character who appeared on the packets. Strangely he was square in shape, whilst the sachets were rectangular.
I have two very vivid memories of these crisps from my childhood. The first was the day we bought a packet of Salt ‘n’ Shake and found no less than six little blue bags of salt. I needed a drink after finishing that packet I can tell you.
The second memory was of a short lived attempt to expand the brand with the introduction of Flavour ‘n’ Shake crisps. As you can probably guess in these instances the little sachets contained flavourings of different types, although if I remember correctly they were only standard flavours like Cheese and Onion or Salt and Vinegar. I think the sachets may have been different colours depending on the flavour, but I don’t remember for sure.
The brand did disappear for a time, probably sometime during the Nineties, but they were brought back in 2003 by Walkers, who now own all the Smiths Crisps brands. Whilst it’s good to see them back on shop shelves, they do now go under the name of Walkers Formerly Smiths Salt & Shake Crisps, which is both a bit of a mouthful and has dropped the old abbreviated ‘n’ for a boring old ampersand…
January 17th, 2012 at 3:55 pm
That’s spooky…my memories of these was finding one bag with 6 salts in!
Must have been a machine “feature” at some point.
January 17th, 2012 at 8:56 pm
Woo, weird city! It most definitely was 6 packs of salt too, for some bizarre reason I remember it distinctly.
January 24th, 2012 at 11:22 am
I loved both Salt n Shake and Flavour n Shake, and I’m delighted to hear that the original is back again!
February 24th, 2012 at 5:35 am
Lord I am old enough to remember when Smiths’s crisps were about the only type available. The crisps came in a greaseproof bag and the salt in a twist of blue paper. Sometimes when the packet had been around a long time (no sell by dates then), the crisps would be a little soggy and the salt a mini-lump of crystalised sodium chloride.
The came an innovation that started the whole flavoured crisps thing – Chipmunk OXO flavour. Yummy.
June 10th, 2012 at 8:50 pm
These have always been my Mum’s fav crisps. I was a fan of Tudor’s tomato ketchup (I’d clim a mountain for Tudor!). And I still recall the odd craze at school of shrinking crisp packets in the oven to use as decorative objects. Girls do the silliest things….!
July 17th, 2012 at 2:22 pm
Stepping into early 90s territory here for a moment, but following on from the joy that was flavour n shake, KP decided to do a similar thing for their Discos brand – Flavour Bombs, I believe they were called. You’d effectively be able to turbo charge the flavouring of your crisps…it was like God himself had blessed them as the taste was truly epic. Right now I’m fashioning a canoe out of my dining room table so that I can escape the pool of saliva that is rapidly filling my dining room. Yet another reminder of how awful life is now compared to said glory years…
November 2nd, 2012 at 3:27 pm
Smith’s crisps….. The trick was …how to put the cowboy on the horse….this trick was in the crisp bag during the 60′s
November 2nd, 2012 at 3:31 pm
Does anyone remember the trick from a smith’s crisp bag where there are two mishapen horses, and two cowboys with their hats on….idea was to place the cowboys on the horses in the correct fashion…this was from the sixties….
January 13th, 2013 at 6:04 am
I remember very often getting a bag of these with NO salt at all. I also once heard tell of someone who got a bag of ONLY salt sachets, but was never able to confirm.