Serious Pig Pickle with Dill flavour crisps

I rather like the flavour of dill pickles but I don’t terribly like the texture. Tiny little cornichons are fine, but the big pickles not so much. So you might suppose that these pickle with dill flavour crisps would be just right for me.

Here we have nice crisps, perhaps a little small, skin on which is always a plus, nice crunch, all in all quite a good crisp. But the taste! Where is the punchy taste of dill pickle? I really think the people at Serious Pig need to add a lot more flavour to warrant the pickle with dill flavour label.

Not bad but a little disappointing on the flavour front. There really is not enough pickley pop. I’m a bit sad.

Johnny Cashew, Honey Seasalt

This 100g packet of cashew nuts from Johnny Cashew tells us something I genuinely didn’t know: cashew nuts grown in Africa are exported to Asia to be shelled. Where in Africa? I don’t know. And where in Asia? No sorry, I don’t know that either. 

But in any case, why?

Does this sound a bit like the C19th gold miners in California sending their dirty clothes off by sailing ship to Hawaii to be laundered? I mean seriously, does the technology to remove the cashew shells from the cashew nuts not exist in any African country in the 21st century?

Well, yes, apparently if it didn’t before, it does now. Because Johnny Cashew, the company, boasts that it has (gasp!) bypassed the long 12,000 km trip to Asia and shelled its nuts in Africa. Which we can only suppose must be a good thing (hurrah!).

Very tasty. I do enjoy a cashew nut. And the honey sea salt flavour is pretty good. Very easy to eat. I finished the packet with no trouble at all, and put a lot of effort into poking my finger into all the corners so as not to waste any tasty flavour dust. I can’t remember where I found these nuts but I would definitely be happy to try another packet. Seek them out nut fans.

And have I any explanation for paragraph 2 being inset? No. No, no idea at all. I tried hard to do something about it but with no success. I do not know how this happened. Computer programmes have minds of their own.

M&S British Hand Cooked Hot Maple Pigs in Blankets Crisps

 

Oh no! Two crispy snacks in a row that I really don’t like.

But not to worry crisp fans, just the other day I watched Cliffs of Moher Taste Tester eat two bowls of these Hot Maple Pigs in Blankets crisps. I managed one. One crisp. 

I don’t like the smell and I don’t like the taste. I think there are just too many flavours battling for supremacy, and really and truly I prefer simpler flavours. 

I’m not sure I would want to eat pigs in blankets with hot maple syrup even before they became a crisp flavour. I don’t really like pigs in blankets. Even without hot maple syrup, chilli, and oak smoked sugar. What is this conspiracy to flavour absolutely everything with smoked salt or smoked sugar these days?

Put your trust in Cliffs of Moher and ignore my pickiness. In any case, as ever, try for yourselves.

The Original Chicken Crackling with the Taste of Sunday Roast

 

I’m not entirely certain who makes this chicken skin product. Maybe Little Bobby Jebb Foods. Apparently it is cooked chicken skin crackling, with a rosemary and thyme seasoning. It’s high in protein (isn’t everything these days?) and low in sugar, and contains no seed oils. Is this a good thing?

I love the chicken logo. It’s charming.

But. Oh no. No, no, no, no, no. Not for me. 

When I actively dislike a crispy snack I am always conscious that it’s only my opinion. And I feel this more acutely when it’s a product from what looks like a small company. After all, nobody makes and sells something nasty on purpose. So you might like this crispy chicken skin. I don’t.

I didn’t like the smell and I didn’t like the taste which is ridiculously salty. And I write as someone likely to sprinkle bacon with extra salt.

Sorry.

Cambrook Dry Roasted Peanuts

Back in September I posted a review of some M&S Dry Roasted Peanuts, which I complained tasted too smoky for me. So here’s another packet of Dry Roasted Peanuts, this time from a company I don’t really know, Cambrook.

My beef last time was with the smoked salt. This new packet is also made with smoked salt, but rather less of it in the recipe I feel. This time I think there’s a bit too much cinnamon. Please don’t say I’m picky. I’m just telling you what I think. 

This packaging has a clear panel so you can see the product before you buy. I suppose it saves on design costs. But it doesn’t work too well when the Taste Tester (me) scoffs down all the nuts before remembering that she should have taken a photograph. Well, if you are reading this you probably have a fair idea what a peanut looks like. But sorry.

Not nasty, not at all, just not really to my taste. I’m not mad about cinnamon. But I ate them perfectly happily. The peanuts themselves are a little smaller than I would like.

Call me weird if you like, and I know you will, but every time I eat peanuts from a small packet I remember Meg Ryan in Sleepless in Seattle, when she’s on the plane to Seattle eating a packet of airplane nuts. Not that I look anything like her. It’s just the shape your (my) hand makes when you pull another peanut out of the little bag.

I really must try a few more different varieties of Dry Roasted Peanuts to see which ones I like best. I’m quite surprised that I haven’t taste tested more of them before. 

Serious Pig Snackingham Classic

‘Snackingham. It’s not a village in HAMpshire!’ says the packet.

No, it’s tender slices of air-dried British pork infused with a blend of garlic, caraway seeds and just a hint of white pepper. And very nice too.

And while I don’t know where this product is actually made, possibly Kent, the company is based in London.

Delicious! Very tasty indeed, and hard to stop eating. Great with a glass of white wine.

It looks a little like slices of a salami style sausage, but the taste reminds me more of the Swiss delicacy viande sechée (which of course is actually made with beef).

OK, I admit, this is not a crispy snack. But it’s a snack. And so good that I would be remiss in my mission to alert my readers to new snacks if I didn’t include this one. Just 17g in this little packet, which makes it look like a crispy snack which it still isn’t, but definitely recommended.

I would buy this product from Serious Pig again. In fact I have. If you eat pork, maybe you should too.

Highly recommended.

Boundless Gut Happy Snacking Smoky Bacon Flavour

Well, this is a tasty crispy snack. 

To be honest, I am not usually mad keen on Smoky Bacon flavour which can often be a bit overpowering, but this crispy snack has a gentle flavour that I really appreciate. Very nice indeed. 

And, quite interesting, not at all what I was expecting, 46% of this crispy snack is made with sprouted sorghum. What even is sprouted sorghum? (Apparently it’s high in cyanide!) Other ingredients include pea flour and maize flour. But whatever this crispy snack is made from it’s definitely tasty and has a very nice texture.

I am not at all sure what makes this snack so good for my gut. Maybe the sorghum? I don’t know.

But yes, I would buy this again. It would be interesting to try another flavour from Boundless, and see how that works.

But where to buy it? I got this from the drinks trolley on my GWR train from Stroud to London and I have no clue where else it might be sold. If you can find it not on a train, I think you will enjoy it.

Vegan approved. And pretty packaging.

Red Leicester Cheesies

These tiny cubes of cheesy crispy snack are slightly larger than, say, a rice crispy. But with a rather different bite. They are very light so you don’t get many cubes in your 20g packet.

I must say I was a little surprised at the flavour. Many cheesy snacks are very sweet. And not actually all that cheesy. These Red Leicester Cheesies are not at all sweet, more sharp, and actually do taste of cheese. 

Perhaps this is because the only ingredient is cheese. The packet tells us there are no carbs, no sugar and no junk. And also they are carefully labelled high protein. Everything has to be full of protein these days, doesn’t it? Instagram is even full of people drinking protein coffee which I think I will manage without.

I’m not sure that I would want to eat more than 20g of these Cheesies at a time, but I might change my mind if I had a glass of nicely chilled white wine to hand. Or perhaps a dry sherry.

Not the most photogenic of snacks but you can see that I ate most of them before I thought to take a photograph.

By the way, I shouldn’t have to say this but I will: nothing that appears on this blog has anything to do with AI. I eat all my own snacks and write all my own words using my own brain. Scientists keep telling us that using our brains is a good thing so I will try to continue doing just that.

Pretzel Pete Cheese Pizza Flavour Pretzel Mix

What? Wait, Cheese Pizza flavoured pretzels? How can this be a thing?

OK, pay attention, it’s not just pretzels because there are chunky bits of biscuity bites and some little sticks too. But I actually prefer the pretzel shapes. They really seem to work quite well with this very strong cheesy pizza flavour. And there’s a lot of flavour going on.

To be honest, I think there’s a bit too much flavour here, and I’m not entirely sure it actually tastes of cheese pizza.

Not bad. But fairly sure I wouldn’t buy another packet.

Cambrook Hickory Smoke Seasoned Almond

 Oh dear. Don’t call me picky, but I really didn’t like these Hickory Smoke flavour almonds.

I’m not mad about almonds in the first place, but if they are fried in butter with a handful of salt chucked over them, I think they are fairly edible. My godmother’s Christmas Day recipe.

However, these almonds are flavoured with hickory smoke seasoning. And to be honest I really don’t like this.

And there we are.

See what you think if you come across them.