About five years ago my good friend Edward J. O'Halloran told me about Tayto, an Irish brand of crisps, or potato chips, as we call them here in the States. This was long before I attained my current status as an international junk-food maven. Since then I've noshed on treats ranging from downright fishy to bland beyond belief. Sadly I've never tried Tayto, or any other type of Irish crisps, for that matter. All of which brings me to the subject of this St. Patrick's Day dispatch: a survey of Tayto and some other crisps that I purchased in the Irish enclave of Woodside, Queens, yesterday. As a bona fide beer geek, I'm a wee bit ashamed to admit that this tasting was done with bottles of Guinness that did not have the famous widget; be advised your results may vary. Slàinte!!

Since they're so in line with my affinity for fishy flavored junk food, let's start with Tayto Prawn Cocktail Flavour Crisps. While there's nothing wrong with this crisp as far as tastiness and crunchiness, I detected not even the faintest hint of prawn. I suspect that in Ireland "Prawn Cocktail Flavour" has as much to do with seafood as "cheese food product" has to do with dairy farms on this side of the pond. This suspicion is borne out by the fact that on the ingredients, prawn cocktail flavor is composed of a dozen subingredients, including MSG and saccharin. It's a craveable crisp that goes well with the Guinness, but I can't help feeling that the folks at Tayto Castle let me down by not giving me my fix of fish flavor.

I never munch on pickled onions, save for when I'm drinking a Gibson, but I hear they're a renowned delicacy in the United Kingdom, so next up is Tayto Pickled Onion Flavour Crisps. These little guys are really quite good and they certainly taste like pickled onion. In fact, they're so addictive I'm struggling not to finish the whole bag! Now if only I had a Gibson to sip with them instead of this bloody Guinness. Or are cocktails and potato chips déclassé? The one down side of these crisps is that I now have quite the case of onion breath. That aside, Mr. Tayto and company have done right by the global snacking community.

I've just passed the halfway mark on my first bottle of Guinness and I'm eager to try yet another snack oddity from the folks at Tayto, Roast Chicken Flavor Crisps. Yeah, you heard right. Seems that Koreans aren't the only ones out there trying to make junk food taste like chicken. Tayto's stab at poultry-flavored potato chips doesn't taste terribly much like chicken either. This is the worst of the Tayto products I've tasted so far. Perhaps it's because what are supposed to be chicken-flavored crisps are described as suitable for vegetarians on the package. I'll stick to chicken cracklings.Would you believe there's yet another brand of roast chicken-flavored crisps out there? Well, there is: Walkers.

These little guys don't have terribly much roast chicken flavor either. This comes as no surprise since they're also touted as veg-friendly on the package. Nevertheless, I find them tastier than Tayto's alleged chicken crisps. Perhaps the stout is affecting my palate. And, no I'm not quite sure what big red ears have to do with junk food.

Keeping with the theme of crisps as a chicken substitute for vegetarian junk-food junkies, let's move on to yet another poultry-themed snack, which contains nary a hint of flesh. Only this time around, the flavor motif isn't roast chicken. It's curry chicken. I must say as I tear open the package of Nobby's Crisps Balti Chicken Flavour I do feel that it's "Friday Night," even though it's only Saturday afternoon. What can I say, I'm highly susceptible to advertising. Once again these crisps don't taste at all like chicken. That said, they are tremendously addictive and not just because they're ridge cut. I suspect their craveability has something to do with what the ingredients lists as "Balti chicken flavour." Sure it's chock full of MSG and other chemicals that I can't seem to wrap my brain around after two Guinnesses, but it also contains celery salt. Clearly the lads at Nobby's take their crisps seriously.

For the last stop on our whirlwind junk-food tour allow me to direct your attention back to Walkers. I saved this one for stout No. 3. The time has come for me to tear open the package of dreaded Marmite flavour crisps and face the horrors contained therein. Maybe it's the Guinness talking, but I have to admit these things aren't half bad. That's not to say they're half good either. Surely their relative inoffensiveness owes itself to the fact that they contain only an infinitesimal amount of the dreaded spent yeast spread.