Lorenz Pomsticks Paprika flavour

Here’s another packet of crispy snacks that I found in our local Turkish shop. They have an amazing array of different brands that can’t always be found anywhere else.

PomSticks, or as we called them when I was a child, chipples, are a tasty way to eat finely chopped and deep fried potatoes. And if I remember correctly, my brother and I learned to eat chipples in Edinburgh, in about 1963. So this style of crispy snack has been around for quite a while.

And this packet of “chipples” is a very tasty example of finely chopped deep fried potatoes. Very nice indeed. 

It tastes nicely of something or other, I couldn’t work out what, but I wasn’t really bothered. But tasty.

If I had bothered to read the label (sorry, I didn’t) I would have known the taste was paprika. Really? I’m not sure I could taste paprika. They don’t seem to taste particularly paprika-y. Whatever it was tasted quite good, so we’ll stick with that.

Here’s another Lorenz crispy snack.

Jacob’s Cheddars Red Leicester

Oh dear. I have enjoyed Cheddars for a long time. Delicious. Although I am surprised to find that I don’t seem to have reviewed them. How odd.

I have also enjoyed many bags of Mini Cheddars in various flavours*. Mostly delicious but smaller. So I was interested to try full size Red Leicester Cheddars.

For anyone who doesn’t know, Red Leicester is a red coloured cheese originally made in Leicester. I believe it works very well in sandwiches. 

However, and I am very sorry to have to report this, Red Leicester Cheddars aren’t a good idea. Same size as your classic Cheddars, same packet of biscuits style packaging, very nearly the same ingredients I expect, but and it is a very big but, they don’t really taste of anything. 

They have just the right crunch and snap, and feel the same in my mouth, but the taste is very disappointing. I am disappointed. I feel there is no real discernible taste of cheese.

*that’s four different posts about Cheddars for your delectation and delight.

Well, just my opinion because there’s no one here to ask their opinion now.

Lay’s Tomato flavoured

And… here we are again. This time with a tomato flavoured crisp from Lay’s which I think started life in Poland. It seems likely that this product was not originally intended to be sold in the UK, but I bought the packet in my local Turkish shop here in North London. According to the lists of ingredients, you should be able to find these crisps in PL, HU, CZ, SK, LT, LV, EE, HR and SI. 

The packaging of all sorts of products, from potato crisps to shampoo, is an interesting way to learn foreign languages. In this case though, there is no list of ingredients in any language that I actually speak. Sadly I have no knowledge of Hungarian or Lithuanian. Or even Polish. How careless of me. So the information on this packet isn’t going to act as a Rosetta Stone for me today. It’s a pity because I find the differences (and similarities) between languages fascinating.

However, the front of this packet is prominently labelled in English, so that’s a fairly big clue.

OK, so this is a tomato flavoured potato crisp. The crisps are finely cut, maybe that’s the Polish preference? And they do taste fairly tomatoey.

But once again, I have here a crisp which is perfectly edible, but to me at least, tastes far too sharp to accurately give us crisp fans a genuine taste of the advertised flavour.

Not bad. But… No, I mean, it’s not a bad crisp but I think tomato is a surprisingly difficult flavour to get right.

Butterkist Crunchy Toffee Popcorn

 

Well, what can I say?

This yummy packet of Butterkist popcorn says “creating smiles since 1914”, and who knew we had popcorn such a long time ago? I mean, did the characters in Upstairs Downstairs ever eat popcorn? What about those people in Downtown Abbey? Perhaps they did. But unfortunately I’ve never really watched either of these popular programmes so I cannot really comment. 

Maybe the Ancient Mexican people of 9,000 years ago who first grew maize (thanks to Wikipedia), made popcorn? You’d think there would be ample opportunity to drop kernels into your cooking fire, and then… pop! Chicomecoatl’s your auntie and you have popcorn. I wonder how long it took for popcorn to be imported into Europe? Anyway, the poor old Ancient Mexicans would surely not have the benefit of this sensational toffee sauce.

This genuinely is a great packet of popcorn. Very nicely popped corn. I suppose that Butterkist has had plenty of time to perfect the process so (good news) there was no dribble of unpopped kernels at the bottom of the bag. And the toffee sauce is delicious. Totally delicious! But I shouldn’t have eaten this whole packet all by myself.

Yes of course. That wasn’t good for me. But I cannot remember the last time I ate popcorn, so provided I don’t eat another packet tomorrow, or not for another month or two at least, I think I can get away with that. 

Highly recommended though. 

M&S Boxing Day Turkey Curry Crisps

You will have to forgive me for not posting this packet of Christmas time poatato crisps before. If you have read by previous post you will have guessed something went terribly wrong with my Christmas plans last year. The Chef and I picked up these crisps in Marks & Spencer a couple of weeks before Christmas when we went to stock  up on our favourite pasta (it’s only available in M&S), but never got to try them.

Anyway, here we are in April and I thought I’d better taste test this turkey curry flavour.

I have to admit that the last time I had turkey for Christmas dinner was probably when I was 5 or 6. My mother was ill in bed, I think she had flu or something, and my father cooked the turkey. I don’t actually remember this at all, but I expect you can imagine that it was a story my mother told often in the run up to Christmas. She didn’t like turkey (neither do I really), so she usually cooked chicken or pheasant, both of which are a lot less gigantic than turkeys. With lots less leftover to turn into a curry. Not that my mother ever cooked a curry but you get the picture.

We weren’t even allowed to have pheasant after my pampered brother whined that he didn’t like it. I notice he ate it happily enough when his wife cooked it.

So what did I think? Well… erm, I am not sure that I could taste any turkey flavour until several minutes after I stopped snacking. Suddenly there was a familiar taste of cardboard (I have eaten turkey often enough at work Christmas lunches). And there was a delicate taste of curry. 

But what did these crisps actually taste of? Citrus. Mostly citrus. A bit odd. 

For anyone confused by Boxing Day in the name of these crisps: Boxing Day is 26 December, a bank holiday in England, when traditionally tradesmen (the dustmen, your gardener, the postman, in the days of open fires the coalman, maybe even your local shop owner) would call in expectation of a seasonal tip. In the road where I live there is always a collection for the dustmen (garbage collectors) and the postman. 

Boxing Day is also traditionally the day when people mad enough to buy a gigantic turkey for their Christmas dinner have to find something tasty to do with cold turkey meat. Turkey sandwiches, turkey rissoles, turkey soup, maybe even turkey curry.

For another take on Boxing Day Curry see here.

Taylors Brie, Bubbly & Orange flavour potato crisps

I wasn’t sure I wanted to carry on writing about crispy snacks because the Chef, always an enthusiastic taste tester, is no longer with us.

But this packet of crisps was a Christmas present so I thought I ought to post about it anyway.

To be honest, I don’t remember ever having heard of Taylors (no apostrophe) who seem to be based in Perthshire and Dublin, but this packet of their crisps was bought in Colchester. Interesting. Anyway, pretty much the whole family has tried these “thick cut” crisps: Ski Instructor, Farmer’s Daughter, Family Vegetarian, Graffiti Artist, even Cliffs of Moher … and we all thought they are a bit too weird.

Now you all know I don’t like being mean about crispy snacks. But honestly, this is not a good crisp. Sorry, but it’s not. For a start it isn’t thick cut. And then it doesn’t taste of Brie, it doesn’t taste of Bubbly (presumably Champagne was not involved in the manufacturing process), and it doesn’t really even taste of orange. Anyway, who wants a potato crisp that tastes of oranges?

Really sorry Taylor family: none of us enjoyed this crisp. The flavour was just wrong.

The Chef: 1951 - 2024
Very much missed by all who knew him

Waitrose Christmas Caramelised Salted Nut Mix

I made a stupid mistake not photographing the see through packaging of this nut mix before I started eating. Silly me, I failed to get a good pack shot. I have eaten everything: all of the nuts and most of the flavour dust caught in the corners, and there’s nothing left but an empty packet which doesn’t look particularly sexy.

Damn. 

Still, this is quite a nice nut mix, easy to eat (or even scoff - I might have scoffed), although I don’t think almonds and cashews genuinely count as a mix. I should think you would need at least three of something to qualify as a mix. The Chef, slightly baffled when I asked if you need three of something to make a mix, vaguely agrees with me.

Once upon a time, a dear friend who was living in Morocco, made the horrid mistake of very kindly bringing me a bagful of fresh almonds. Freshly picked from Moroccan nut orchards, and to my way of thinking, absolutely horrible. I don’t like almonds. I don’t like almond flavour. The almond drink orgeat, so popular in the Regency, fills me with horror. And I think marzipan, famously made with almonds, tastes very nasty indeed.

But an almond, especially selected by Mr Waitrose to be caramelised and/or salted is extremely tasty.

Although I do prefer the cashews. 

So, rather a nice “mix” of caramelised salted nuts.

M&S Chocolate Covered Pretzels

Hmmn… the chocolate coating on these pretzels is slightly sweeter than I expected, and the pretzel taste disappointingly fugitive. Really not enough crunch and definitely not enough salt.

If I were given the chance, I think I would adjust the sweet/salt ratio. Quite tasty, but I don’t think I would buy another packet.

The Chef liked his pretzels better than I did. He likes milk chocolate. But he agrees that there really isn’t enough saltiness.

Extremely handsome lime green and shocking pink packaging though. Very nice.

M&S Hand Cooked Hot Honey Pigs in Blankets Crisps

So, Pigs in Blankets? To be honest I had never heard of pigs in blankets until I was quite grown up. At Christmas my family had miniature (cocktail) sausages with the chicken (not turkey), and rolled up bacon. But not bacon rolled around sausages. I didn’t even know it was a thing. 

Anyway, this M&S crisp tastes nothing like sausages, nothing like bacon, and I would hazard, nothing like pigs in blankets.

But could this be the fault of the hot honey? This crisp doesn’t taste of honey either. Perhaps that’s because the oak smoked sugar is interfering. But it does feature a big hit of something hot. I expect that’s the chilli.

I definitely wouldn’t bother to buy these crisps again.

However, Cliffs of Moher Taste Tester came round to help built my Christmas tree, and after complaining that she really didn’t care for M&S crisps, graciously agreed to try this one. Apparently they don’t have pigs in blankets in Ireland, or at least not where she was brought up, but not to worry because she surprised herself by rather enjoying these crisps. A bit like smoky bacon she thought. Which explains a lot as I have never liked smoky bacon crisps and avoid them if I can. 

Anyway, quite a lot of the packet got eaten fairly enthusiastically. So I guess that counts as a sign of approval.

But what a waste of a potentially good flavour. Basically, to me, these fine cut crisps taste mostly of the something hot and, prompted by Cliffs of Moher, smoky bacon. And I’m not really very impressed by Marks & Spencer’s Christmas packaging either.

Waitrose Christmas Mandarin & Sour Cherry, Caramelised Nut Mix

I know this is not a packet of crisps, and it doesn’t really qualify as a crispy snack, so I guess it’s more of a chewy snack?

Yes, the slightly weird dried mandarin part of this snack mix from local supermarket Waitrose is a lot tastier than I expected. But definitely chewy. The sour cherries I mistook for large raisins or something, but they are tasty too.

On the crunch front there are caramelised almonds, a lot nicer than regular almonds because they don’t actually taste of almonds, and then there are cashews too.

So, an interesting mix of flavours and textures for this Christmas mix. Somehow a lot tastier than I expected, and the different textures work very nicely.

If you can’t get to a Waitrose you could probably make your own mix with freeze dried mandarins, sour cherries, some cashews and, with any luck, caramelised almonds. Maybe honey roasted or salted almonds would work instead. I really am quite surprised that I enjoyed this combination of texture and flavour so much.

Give this combination a try. (The Chef not so impressed.)