Made for Drink Baron Bigod Cheese & Onion

This flavour of Made for Drink (premium bar snacks) crisps was created in partnership with English Heritage. I visited my local English Heritage property recently by myself, pottered around the garden and landscape for a while, and then I fancied a drink and a snack.

I found these crisps. Cheese and Onion flavour. Made with fancy Baron Bigod cheese (a British artisan cheese made by Fen Farm Dairy). And very nice too. Properly cheese and oniony.

Unfortunately I don’t remember these crisps very well because I was grumpy that my bank card was rejected* at the café till. It was rejected again at the garden shop, for no reason that I could think of, but that rather overshadowed my visit. I might try the Dorset Sea Salt next time. Not the Truffle because truffle is disgusting. 

*I called my bank and they said they only allow £300 of contactless payments before you have to use your PIN number again. They do not tell you this. This information is not on the letter that comes with your new PIN. The man I spoke to admitted that a lot of customers get in touch because they had their cards deactivated too. And they didn’t know about the £300 limit any more than I did. Apparently this information is in the terms and conditions. But where are they? 

Anyway, nice crisps.

Jacob’s Mini Cheddars Frank’s Red Hot Original Cayenne Pepper Sauce

Pay attention if you like spicy snacks. This is a limited edition offering from Jacob’s. Although, obviously I don’t know when the time limit began or when it will finish. 

Hot! A bit of a surprise to a regular Mini Cheddar fan.

Yes, these are basically the ordinary everyday Mini Cheddars that you know and love (always a good bet if you fancy a little biscuitty, crunchy, cheesy snack), but invigorated with the exciting addition of Frank’s Red Hot sauce (since 1920). 

Yum. Definitely yum. Not for you if you don’t like spicy, and honestly I didn’t used to, I really didn’t. But your palate evolves if you give it a chance, and perhaps you might like to start here.

But if you do fancy a red hot taste of cayenne pepper sauce, seek them out and try them while you can. I very much enjoyed this 150g packet and eked them out for a week, not wanting to snack them down too quickly.

Walkers Quavers Red Leicester

I,  and more than 4,000 other people, were extremely offended by an Instagram post recently where a family of Americans thundered round a UK supermarket and basically mocked everything in the shop for being “wrong”. Because everything was a UK product or a UK flavour… well, of course: they were in the UK. The family had much to say about Walkers having the wrong name (because they aren’t called Lay’s in the UK) and criticising the flavours for being wrong. Doh! Products in different countries have different names and different flavours. Imagine that.

So I hope if any readers visit an American (German/Icelandic/Peruvian/Korean) supermarket any time soon they will be polite enough to notice that the products are different, and not wrong.

And here’s a snack from Walkers who are, yes we admit it, owned by Lay’s: Quavers. A much loved snack in the UK. Yes, I think we are probably all prepared to admit that they are made of 100% expanded polystyrene (not actually), but basically the main ingredient, potato starch, has been manipulated into a crispy snack that pops on the tongue and might just as well be polystyrene (not really). So they’re definitely not a crisp. Or chip. Look, don’t @ me.

Although Quavers claims to be a cheesy snack, and does have a nice crunch, and a lovely pop, they really only taste of pretend ultra processed not really cheese. Not to worry, I like them very much despite this. And they’ve been going for quite some time so I guess a lot of other people like them too.

Anyway, I saw a packet of Red Leicester Quavers the other day, so I thought why not. A bit more cheesy than the original flavour I think. Rather tasty. 

I would definitely eat another packet of these.

NB Don’t forget Leicester is pronounced Lester.

Waitrose Christmas Hickory Smoked Nut Mix

This packet of Hickory Smoked nuts from Waitrose is left over from last Christmas and I forgot it was at the back of the cupboard. You may not be surprised to learn that I wasn’t exactly looking around for snacks. 

But now, despite the fact that this packet is seriously out of date, and the other fact that I have previously announced to the world that I don’t like Hickory Smoke flavour, I’m going to give them a try.

Just to see. 

Apparently this is a smoky mix of roasted cashews, almonds & macadamia nuts. Sounds like a nice mix.

But… 

The nuts are fine, not sure there’s actually anything wrong with them, but no, no, no, no, no, oh dear I still hate this horrible Hickory Smoked flavour. So not for me.

Honestly, even if this snack wasn’t out of date I still wouldn’t like it.

So there we are. I think we only bought this nut mix because we had already tried two other flavours in this Waitrose selection from Christmas 2024.

And check the previous Waitrose flavours. Like this one.

Walkers Sensations Oven Roasted Peanuts Honey and Salt Flavour

Here we go again, another year, another snack to write about, and just for a change (not) here’s another packet of nuts. Because I wanted to compare Honey Roast Peanuts with Honey and Salt flavour nuts.

You might suppose that they would be pretty nearly identical but you would be wrong. The Honey and Salt are much less sweet than the Honey Roast, and considerably more salty. Much more to my taste. Lots of delicious flavour dust. Very nice. 

But sadly the peanuts are not so good. Smaller and harder than KP nuts usually are. 

However, this is a good option if you fancy a sweet and salty nut.

I wonder why Walkers chose Californian honey? Surely there is plenty of honey produced in the UK, or failing that, Europe?

KP Honey Roast Peanuts

I am continuing my quest to see if I really like any flavour of peanut better than the regular salted kind. And I think it’s possible that I don’t.

This Honey Roast flavour (source of protein, high in fibre) is quite sweet (made with glucose syrup - no wonder it’s so sweet), and I am not sure that’s what I want from a peanut. Oh dear, I seem to be a lot pickier than I used to be.

I read that grief can cause changes to your sense of smell and taste, but a year after my dear husband died, although I am still grieving, I am not sure this is a good excuse. I guess I just don’t like the sweetness anymore. Maybe age also affects your sense of taste?

Honestly, I’m sure I remember enjoying Honey Roast peanuts. And the peanuts in this case seem pretty good. So don’t pay any attention to me not enjoying them as much as I once did. Even though I don’t even feel like finishing the packet. 

Maybe I will try another flavour… and there are some flavoured peanuts on sale in my local supermarket that I have never attempted. 

Y’all know what peanuts look like, so no extra photos.

The Chef 
He changed my life forever and never tried to change me
1951 - 2024

Serious Pig Snacking Cheese

The packet says pure cheese baked to a crunch, but there is noticeable rosemary in the recipe.

I wasn’t sure about trying this crispy snack but it is quite tasty. Not just cheese, which can be quite overwhelming, but rosemary too. Although it’s still very rich, so don’t try to eat the whole packet at once, a few at a time are quite nice.

I probably wouldn’t buy another packet though. Not sure I am the biggest fan of this style of snack. Maybe the time has come to go back to potato crisps. 

Serious Pig Sausage Flavour Crisps

I love sausages, and you know I love crisps, so I was excited to try a packet of sausage flavour crisps.

What a disappointment. These crisps are covered in lots and lots of flavour, but I don’t think any of it adds up to sausage flavour. 

Now, you will probably think I am being far too picky, because I said the last Serious Pig crisp I reviewed (the dill pickle flavour) didn’t have enough flavour, and here I am moaning that this crisp has too much flavour. Never satisfied, eh? 

Also these crisps are quite big, which is weird, because the dill pickle crisps were quite small.

What a shame though. A missed opportunity. Could do better. See me after class.

KP Dry Roasted Peanuts

I thought I would try probably the most well known peanut company in the UK: KP.

And what do I think? Actually, I’m wondering if I ever liked Dry Roasted Peanuts in the first place. Did I used to like them? I can’t really remember. Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t.

Oh, this is a fine peanutty snack, no doubt about it, but I’m going to be just as picky as I was with the last two Dry Roasted options I have tried recently. And in this case, I think there’s too much dried yeast extract. And thus these nuts are too Marmitey for me. Although I do love Marmite, the flavour of these nuts is just too marmitey.

I am not going to abandon this 250g packet of very nice nuts. I will eat them all, but slowly. And I think perhaps I will attempt a different style of nuts next time.

I must say though, I really do applaud KP’s reseal system. Quite a lot of other companies offer resealable packaging these days, and quite a lot of the resealing just doesn’t work, or hasn’t worked for me. I hope all these resealing systems will work better in the future.

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.