Food. What a pathetic little word to describe the vast cornucopia of delectable poison that is available, to some of us at least. I don't know where to start. The common crisp (or “chip”, as our American friends so misleadingly call it) seems as good a place as any. Let me, therefore, start there.

The notion came as I was sitting on a barnacled rock in a Scottish bay, watching the sun glitter on the water and peeling a boiled egg. There is no greater partnership, when on a rock, than that of egg and crisp. Textural reasons present themselves immediately - even, perhaps, to those who have never sampled the above. The softness of the egg marries beautifully with the edges of the crisp - of course it does. That much is obvious. But one can extrapolate the pleasures still further.

First of all, there is a moral joy to be had. Nobody who has had half an ear open for the past 20 years can have failed to pick up on the notion that crisps are bad for you. They are pure salt and fat. They are to the potato what the deep-fried Mars Bar is to panna cotta. They are steeped in sin and, if eaten for long enough and in quantity, will almost certainly kill you. Yet together with an egg - that most glorious of articles, boiled fresh and not for too long, to avoid the green layer that comes with age and the bounce against the teeth that is the tragic result of overcooking - one can justify the crisp. Surely the crisp contains about the same amount of salt as one would sprinkle over the egg, were condiments to be found upon our rock? The resultant slightly crunchy, slightly creamy mouthful is, I think, second to none on my list of top items to eat upon a rock.

I have expanded on the state of the egg. I must qualify the criticism of the crisp. In my view - and it is a truly humble one - it cannot, should not, ought not, be one of those gigantic triple-pan-fried- in-the-barrel things that are so popular nowadays, and that hurt to eat. (They do.) They are, I am sure, the ultimate in dipping materials - they would have to be, because something has to come between their razor-sharp edges and the roof of your mouth if you are not to bleed to death on your kind, dip-offering hostess's carpet. A handful of these things constitutes, to my mind, the best part of a full meal. Who can fit anything in after a few of those, and what is suitable, apart from something very soft that will not aggravate the cuts? They will not do.

In my day - that is to say, during my main crisp-eating years - my dream of bliss was a packet of Golden Wonder Cheese & Onion. Now that's a crisp. It's a crisp because it's exactly what it says it is: it's crisp. But a packet of these doesn't make you bleed or need to lie down. Granted, you are less likely to be in for a snog afterwards, but for goodness' sake, are we to expect all pleasures at once?

A memory, then - just one - a memory of the perfection of an egg and a crisp of the light and tasty variety I have just described. I am sitting on a rock. (No barnacles this time.) It is, in fact, a wall, quite a high wall, and my legs are swinging. By my side is my friend, Matt, who is 11, and my sister, Sophia, who is seven. I am nine. I am in soft trousers of a colour indeterminate enough not to alter when I wipe my fingers clean on them. I have an egg and a packet of cheese and onion crisps. I think - but I cannot swear to it - that Matt has salt and vinegar (too tart for me) and Soph smoky bacon (too sweet, perhaps). We are watching the massed bagpipe bands on their march down Argyll Street, in Dunoon.

The pipes are wailing, the drums are beating in time with our hearts and we have the perfect view. As I lift the last, carefully apportioned bit of egg to my mouth and pop in the final crumbs from my crisp packet, carefully licking as far down the thing as my prepubescent tongue will reach, then gathering the last motes with a moistened finger, I realise the snack is coming to an end. There is a brief moment of genuine sorrow.

Crisps were a treat. You treasured them, or at least I did. The biggest ones you ate in little mouthfuls, like a piece of toast. You didn't know where the next packet was coming from. But then I knew that perfect happiness is not supposed to last. It is packaged up in moments like that one. They come and they go. The art of living is to know one when you feel it.

Taken from Finch's Quarterly Review.

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