Irish people love potatoes. For some of them, a meal is not a proper meal without potatoes. Well, you can imagine, this means, practically, they eat them every day.

You can buy potatoes everywhere: supermarkets, groceries, stalls put up along the main roads and even petrol station shops.

They play an important part in Irish diets that, each year, Bord Bia (the Irish Food Board) promotes a National Potato Day.

There are potatoes for every purpose. The red-skinned and yellow-fleshed Rooster is good for boiling, mashing, roasting, steaming, baking and also good in soups, while the golden-skinned and creamy white-fleshed Maris Piper is suitable for making chips, roasties and wedges.

The Rooster and the Mary Piper are most common, but you can easily find the Kerr’s Pink, British Queen, Golden Wonder and Cara.

It comes as no surprise that the Irish people really love crips too. They enjoy them everywhere, any time of the day. Breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks are all right moments for this. Children are very often awarded chips, and even people lining up in rows at St Patrick’s Day Parade in Dublin are given free chips as a treat.

Recent research showed that each man, woman and child eat 340 packets of crisps per year, meaning a packet each day.

But crips, in Ireland, translate “Tayto”. Tons of packets with the iconic mascot Mr Tayto on them are sold every year.

Tayto Crisps Company was founded by Joe Murphy in May 1954 and is based near Ashbourne, County Meath.

The first flavoured crisp production process was invented here. The very first two flavours were Cheese & Onion and Salt & Vinegar. A real success! Nowadays, Cheese & Onion still continues to be Ireland’s favourite crisps.

Tayto crips were/are a cultural phenomenon throughout much of the Republic of Ireland, so that, in November 2010, Tayto Park opened.

I was shocked when I saw my first “Tayto Sandwich” or Crisp Sandwich, never heard of it or tasted it. It looked so weird to me.

Although Ireland and England are disputing to be both the country of its origin, the sandwiches are very popular. Even Airlingus offered Tayto Sandwiches on their in-flights in 2015 and 2016.

Making a crisp sandwich is super-easy: two buttered slices of soft white bread filled with crips!

Well, there is one more secret: you have to use Brennan’s bread, Kerrygold butter and Tayto Cheese and Onion Crisps; now you have the perfect Irish crisp sandwich!

Forgetting the high salt level, I must say it is a real delicious snack!