‘Chickeese’ corn snacks or matcha mousse-flavoured chips? I know which I’d rather eat | Nicholas Jordan

At my local supermarket there are two snack aisles. One is filled with chips with flavours like cheese, light and tangy, barbecue and simply "chicken", as if that's the chip equivalent of eating a wild, raw chicken, feathers and all.

That aisle is the snack equivalent of network TV reruns - safe, unsurprising and powered by nostalgia.

The second chip aisle is late-night SBS: unpredictable, subtitled and occasionally not appropriate for children. It's where I go for crisps from the US, Korea and China, for flavours like black olive and sundried tomato, roasted garlic oyster and South American barbecue.

While the market has changed over time, the chips in the "chicken and cheese" aisle are largely representative of what you'll find in supermarkets and convenience stores around Australia. Whenever there's a change to that standard chip aisle, it seems to cause quite the ruckus. Media report on the new flavour as though it's the latest salacious celebrity gossip, and social media opinions erupt like an orchestra made up only of soloists.

It happened with Kettle ginger beer and Doritos coriander, with Smith's Subway sub and Twisties/Donut King cinnamon donuts. And a couple of weeks ago it happened again when Twisties announced it would be releasing - hold on to your party poppers - chicken and cheese flavoured Twisties in the one bag.

Whether the new release is Twisties Chickeese (the actual name for the cheese-chicken mixed bag) or Red Rock Deli champagne vinaigrette and shallot, I always have the same question - why does this exist? What is the motivation for Twisties, a snack food company that, through decades of advertising, has convinced us that an accidentally invented extruded mix of corn, rice, oil and maltodextrin in the shape of a Sculpture by the Sea artwork is a normal thing to eat? Considering that Twisties hasn't said when Chickeese is being released, it seems as though the motivation is purely seeking attention.

But what about that other snack aisle, is that a constant rotation of gimmicks, or earnest attempts to create new, delicious and interesting flavours? To answer that question, a group of friends and I blind tasted 13 chips that many would consider to be the more unusual flavours on the market, including salmon sushi and wasabi, and hot and sour lemon-braised chicken feet.