Peperami

 

Yes, yes I know. Of course this is not a crispy snack.

Yes, it’s a narrow stick of salami adjacent deliciousness which has no crispy crunch. 

I just had a bit of a craving for a Peperami the other day. So here we are. I would have preferred a regular sized Peperami but this is what I got because the regulars were out of stock. And this style of not crispy snack is called meat snacking. Of course there’s a name for it. Of course there is.

Peperamis are made in Germany, but the company is currently owned by a US company called Jack Link’s. Which I have never heard of. Never mind. Apparently they are sold in the UK, Ireland and Mexico. But not the USA. Or Germany. This feels slightly weird.

The label, you can see for yourself, says 100% pork, and the flavouring is made of the ever popular “spices”. And I’m pretty sure it’s 100% extremely highly processed. I know. But just every once in a while it’s nice to eat something you fancy. Do I like this? Is it tasty? And the answer is: delicious. 

Obviously not suitable for vegetarians or vegans. Not kosher or halal. But an occasional tasty treat for people like me.

Snackrite Thick Cut Ridged Cheese & Onion

 

Oh what a disappointment!

I just wrote about the Ready Salted crinkle cut crisp that came in this very same multi pack. And I pretty much gave that crisp 10/10. Except I don’t usually do that. But you get the picture. 

But….. oh dear. This packet of Cheese & Onion crisps from the exact same manufacturer, from the exact same multi pack bag…and yet these crisps hardly taste of anything. This is one of the top UK crisp flavours, one of our very favourites. What has happened here?

Yes this crisp has a great crunch, yes the ridges are great, and yes I absolutely was prepared to love this crisp. Where is the flavour?

I am so not impressed.

Bret’s Saveur Petits Oignons

Little Onion flavour crisps from France. 

To be honest I am not entirely sure what difference the size of the onion makes to the flavour of the onion, or indeed to the flavour of these crisps. Are small onions sweeter? Do they have a more intense oniony flavour? I don’t know. But Bret’s obviously think this distinction is important.

However, these crisps do taste of onion. Quite nicely of onion, if not very strongly. 

I like these crinkle cut crisps. The narrow crinkle is usual from Bret’s, the crunch is as good as ever, and perhaps if the onion taste were stronger the crisps wouldn’t be as nice. I am quite sure they would work very well with a dip like sour cream and chive. Unfortunately I don’t have any dips to hand and I am waiting at home for a new SIM card to be delivered. What’s the betting it won’t arrive today?

PS No of course there was no delivery of SIM cards, or anything else, but I ate all these crisps nonetheless.

Snackrite Thick Cut Ridged Ready Salted

 Kind neighbours were going to Aldi and asked if I wanted anything. They brought home a variety pack of thick cut ridged crisps.

This is one of the Ready Salted packets. A whole 25g. Which is not very many crisps.

This is a very simple crisp. The only ingredients are British potatoes, vegetable oil and salt. And very nice too. Some of these fancy modern flavours are too complicated and weird for their own good. But a lot of the time you can’t beat going back to basics. And this is a very good basic.

Thick cut but not too thick, ridged or crinkle cut, and just the right amount of salt. This is a very good crisp.

Snackrite is an Aldi brand, exclusively available at Aldi.

Guardian Newspaper Taste Test

Photo stolen from The Guardian 

OK everyone, strap yourselves in for this article about crazy flavour crisps published in The Guardian newspaper this week.

I was having a cup of tea with my neighbours (who are the only people on the planet capable of making me drink tea), and for some reason was explaining that I write this blog about crisps and crispy snacks. And they said: well perhaps I should offer to write an article for The Guardian. I explained that over the years I have posted a number of articles about crisps that have appeared all over the place: Daily Mail, The Guardian… I can’t remember, all sorts. 

So writing about crisps is nothing new. I mean, you knew that. Nobody has ever heard of me, but more than a million people have read my blog. And continue to read it. I am also well aware that blogs are old fashioned and I should maybe get myself a substack: but… I have even been referenced by Wikipedia! Woohoo!

Anyhow, the very next day who should publish a piece about weird flavoured crisps but The Guardian. Coincidence? Alternative universe? Who can say. And here’s the link. 

Do read it, because some of these crisps sound utterly bonkers. You know I have attempted many different flavours over the years for your entertainment and delight, but some of these I have never come across.

I think this reviewer has been asked to review too many flavours all at once and has been overwhelmed by the incredible amount of flavours available to us these days. Frankly far too many. Honestly, I think in the end I really like Ready Salted best. If it’s done well it’s hard to beat it.

Co-op Irresistible Hand Cooked BBQ Lamb Kofta & Tzatziki Flavour Limited Edition

I’ve only gone and bought yet another bag of crisps that I don’t like.

I don’t care that they’re a limited edition, I don’t find them irresistible and I can’t taste Lamb Koftas, BBQ or otherwise. 

That’s unfortunate. The Co-op, that’s the UK Co-op, usually produces a good crisp. And here we have a nice sized crinkle cut crisp, not too large, with the expected good crunch. But… whatever were the flavour scientists thinking? I know what you’re thinking; it’s probably just my weird sense of taste. But seriously, I can just barely detect the lamb and the tzatziki not at all.

What a pity. I love lamb koftas. And I’m rather partial to tzatziki. Hey ho.

I’m really sorry but I cannot recommend this crisp. Look, it’s not a nasty flavour it’s just not the flavour as advertised. Luckily, it is as I said before, a limited edition crisp and probably all the bags that were made have been sold and eaten by people less fussy than me. But remember, I am an internationally renowned taste tester. So that’s my job.

Sorry everyone.

Mini Cheddars Cheeselets Intensely Cheese & Onion Flavour

This is a bit odd. This crispy snack is not a Mini Cheddar. They are round and biscuitty. This crispy snack is not a Cheeselet. True, Cheeselets are roughly square, but they too are biscuitty, and these squares are thin and quite pointy at the corners. 

What’s going on?

Nice crispy crunch, a slight cheese and onion flavour which I actually prefer to the promised intense flavour, but not a lot of flavour dust. Extremely sharp at the corners or pointy bits. I probably wouldn’t give these to a younger child. Quite palatable, but not very exciting.

So pladis, who seem to be the owners of Jacob’s these days, have appropriated two of Jacob’s best known brands to present us with something that is neither one nor the other. (Also pladis doesn’t have a capital letter.)

Bluebird Cheezels

“When your buds are crying out for a cheezy fix, only Cheezels the seriously cheezy cheeze snack will do!” Is this buds as in taste buds, or buds as in your (probably male) friends? Who can say.

Well, this cheese flavoured corn snack isn’t actually all that seriously cheezy. Sorry, cheesy.  I’m not criticising them for tasting very similar to every other extruded corn crispy snack from all around the world, because all these very similar snacks taste pretty good to me. They just don’t really taste of cheese, whatever the advertising tells us. Hardly any of them do. 

And yes, in case you were wondering, just like all the other extruded corn crispy snacks, they gum themselves to your teeth and are remarkably difficult to dislodge.

Unfortunately I ate this entire packet before I remembered I hadn’t taken a photograph of these rather large crispy rings. The picture on the packet gives a fairly accurate idea of what they look like. Except they definitely aren’t big enough for that mystery penguin to jump through the hoop.

I can report that it is possible to absent mindedly eat the entire packet at one sitting. So, you know, quite moreish.

Arnott’s Shapes Originals Pizza Flavour

 

I think I have made a mistake. I shouldn’t have bought this packet of Pizza flavoured Shapes. Pizza is almost never a successful flavour for a crispy snack or a potato crisp. 

I suspect that many people think pizza flavour comes from the mix of tomato sauce and Italian seasoning. And they’re obviously important, but what about the wonderful flavour of just baked crust such as you find in the best Italian pizzerias? I have no truck with thick crust pie style pizza. It’s just not right. 

I think my very favourite pizza ever was in Milan. I have been to Naples, but only for about 20 minutes, and I was rather distracted having to fend off crowds of men whose only words in English appeared to be “do you want to go with me?”. They weren’t interested in me, but my companion was blonde and blue eyed and better endowed with curves than I was. So I didn’t actually get anything to eat in Naples, but the pizzeria we ate at in Milan is one of a chain that started in Naples.

Anyway, this little biscuitty snack tastes nothing much like pizza. There is a lot of seasoning mix on nearly all the biscuits, on top of a layer of grated cheese by the looks of things. The biscuit has a good bite, and eating them feels more like having a snack than scoffing down a packet of crisps. 

Not bad. Just not much like pizza. Ah well, you can’t have everything.

Kurkure Masala Munch

This is a spicy crispy snack “bursting with a delicious fusion of authentic seasonings and fragrant herbs”. Kurkure (which means crunchy in Hindi and Urdu) was originally launched in India and then Pakistan, and is now a subsidiary of PepsiCo.

The snack itself is made with dal, corn and rice and seasoned with all sorts of actual spices like cumin and fenugreek. This makes a change from the usual vague “spices” or “flavouring”.

Nice and crunchy, this is a spicy snack, very slightly eggy due to the black rock salt.

A very nice change from the average snack available here in North London.