Larger surface area chips, (crisps, what ever)

Have you ever wondered why crinkle cut chips are so much better than thin chips? A few reasons are they are crisper because the corrugation gives more structure to the chip which in turns makes it crunch louder, to hold this structure the chip needs to be thicker which means it is more chunky and adds even more to the crunch. However the main reason that crinkle cut are better is because they have a larger surface area to size ratio than flat chips, this means that a larger amount of flavour can be held in a chip that is crinkle cut than an ordinary flat chip of the same size.

Companies advertise that their chip has the biggest flavour hit when really the amount of flavour is limited by the surface area of the chip itself and no matter how many extra sachets of powdery stuff you put in it won't make much difference.

Chip scientists need to look to nature for inspiration when designing the perfect chip. The lung is a perfect example I'm not sure of the particulars but I remember that it has a huge amount of surface area for its size because of the millions and millions of tiny alveoli (air sacs) and I was thinking that by using micro technology a chip could be made with millions of tiny tunnels though it, or maybe a whole potato could be hollowed out with millions of tunnels and air pockets like a lung. A small hole could be made in the top and a micro robot based on a termite but a million times smaller could make an intricate network of tunnels and air pockets inside leaving the outside completely intact. After flavour was injected in it would be fried and ready to eat.

I expect nearly 2/3 of the potato to be removed in this hollowing out process, the waste can be used to make pringles.

From the outside it looks like a big round chip but once you bite into it you are hit by the intense flavour that only a chip with ultimate surface area to size ratio can provide.