The Joy of Spanish Potato Chips (Crisps for the Brits)

Fried in olive oil and salty as hell

You can find thousands of different potato chip brands in Spain. Many are brands that are only available at a fruit and vegetable stand in a tiny village, made with local potatoes and olive oil, and some feature the pillars of Hercules on their packaging (above). Of course you can find industrially produced potato chips in Spain — made with sunflower oil and the like — but best brands with the best flavor and crunch are made with the local extra virgin olive oil. Sounds expensive, right? Well not in Spain where it literally grows on trees. Because the country is the producer of 80% of the world’s olive oil, it’s cheap here, and they’re not afraid to spill rivers of EVOO into vats for frying up the world’s best potato chips. They’re also not afraid to salt the chips with high quality sea salt from the Atlantic and the Med, which is also abundant here. The potatoes aren’t bad either, and Spanish potato chips tend to be heftier — both in crunch and size — than chips I’ve seen in other countries, much more like the Kettle Chips variety than a brand like Lay’s. I think this sturdiness is a function of how they’re used in Spain.

Here, potato chips are used almost like a cracker in the Anglo world. Although you can have them alone of course, you often use them to dip into other things. You can eat them with cheese, too, or sardines or anchovies, or even duck liver pate. They’re also frequently found with olive tapenade, pickles, and chorizo cooked in cider.

Bag design is strictly old school for the most part, and often has a regional element — a local mountain, landmarks, or natural monument is often featured in the design. Many of the bag designs have not changed since the 1950s, when it seems many of these small companies started producing potato chips.

Last summer, we stayed in a small village called Olvera for two months. This is an ancient Moorish village of about 15,000 surrounded by olive groves and not much else — very isolated in the mountains of Cadiz Province. Olvera had some of the best potato chips I’ve ever tasted, and they were only sold in two places — in a small, dusty village grocery store the size of someone’s living room, and in a fruit and vegetable stand across the street. Wrapped in a clear bag with a label depicting the town’s famous church and Moorish fort from the 14th century, they were a marvel of texture and saltiness — a true gourmet product, except for the fact that they cost only one euro for quite a healthy sized bag. I bought them daily with the excuse that they wouldn’t always be available, so why not take advantage now? I miss those chips frequently, like an old friend who slipped out of my life.

Every bar around my new town here in Conil de la Frontera seems to serve the local potato chips, because of course they are the perfect drinking snack. And when I saw perfect, I mean it. This is not hyperbole. Since the local potato chip game is so strong in Spain, it has forced supermarket chips to step it up a notch. Every grocery store has at least one olive oil potato chip variety — often the Santa Reino brand, which is incredible. Even Aldi’s olive oil potato chip options is excellent, and it’s their Spanish house brand.

Unfortunately since most of these micro-brands are so local, without websites and distributors, you can’t get them outside their village homes. One slightly more luxe option is available at El Corte Ingles, so you can order it online in Europe. This is the San Nicasio brand, which is made with D.O.-protected extra virgin olive oil from Cordoba and pink Himalayan sea salt. They are truly exceptional. A slightly more available and excellent chip is Marinas, which is made with extra virgin olive oil and sea salt from Trenc, which is on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca. You can practically hear the techno music and waves as you bite into them. Torres Selecta chips are also amazing — and they feature crazy flavors like Iberian ham, caviar, and de la Vera smoked paprika, although there’s also a regular olive oil variety.