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.
-- Gulherme, Jan 01 2003

Mr. Potato Head vs. a Flocking Road Cone http://moviemaniac1...ToyStory/potato.gif
[thumbwax, Oct 05 2004]

Mmmh, lung chips and robot bugs.

It's definitely got all the essentials. (+)
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jan 01 2003


The robotic bugs are programmed so that they come out of the chips, each chip could be x rayed on the way to the friar to make sure the little tykes had made it out safely and these wont make it into potato feilds because they are robots and arn't living things they can only work within the chip facroty where they can be recharged. The robots are tiny tiny little things anyway and if you swallowed one of them there would be no effect at all, if you bit one it would probably smash, think of somthing about the with of a human hair.
-- Gulherme, Jan 01 2003


Come *on*, surely you can do this without magic robot bugs which are really just a cop-out since you can make *anything* with magic robot bugs.
-- egnor, Jan 01 2003


What makes you think that the amount of flavour is limited the surface area? I would think that the surface area of the tongue would be the limiting factor. Why not just make the flavour of the powdery stuff more intense? This has been baked (fried, actually).

Increased surface area would, however, change the texture of the chip. Acheiving this using magic robot bugs would be uneconomical. Why not grind potatoes into fragments, or flakes, then reform them with an edible binder that, when fried, assumes the shape of complex fractal geometry?
-- xrayTed, Jan 01 2003


Cut thinner, more deeply ruffled chips. Ruffle the ruffles. Then expose the cut chips to a fine spray to pit the surface.

Such a chip will disappear when you fry it, but you'll have advanced the field.
-- Monkfish, Jan 01 2003


The robot bugs were just an example of a way in wich the surface area of the chip could be increased, the idea itself was chips with increased surface area so that more flavor can be carried by each individual chip.
-- Gulherme, Jan 01 2003


Enter "Mobius Chips". The chip that keeps on giving. Mobius Chips have no beginning or end, and a nice hoopy little shape to facilitate scooping up your favorite dips. Your tongue may be so confused by the seemingly endless surface area that it wouldn't matter what the chip tasted like.
-- X2Entendre, Jan 01 2003



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