Pai d'Oro Anellini Gusto Pizza

I can't remember now if we got these crispy maize rings in a supermarket in Stresa or Baveno, but I suppose it doesn't matter much as they're both on Lake Maggiore in Northern Italy.  But I have to admit that I'm pretty disappointed with my first foray into Italian crisps. Especially as Pai seem to be sponsors of the Italian football team so you might hope their products would be tasty.

Well, you might hope because what we have here is "lo snack delizioso e stuzzicante". Yes….

This is quite a big bag considering it only has 35g of crispy maize snacks in it. But I suppose they are ring-shaped so you get a great big hole in the middle which takes up space but doesn't weigh anything. So top marks for the ring shape.

And the gusto pizza? No pizza I ever ate tasted like this, and the smell isn't pizzary either. Quite nice orangey colour to the rings but not a lot of flavour dust. They are quite (again with the quite) nice but not massively exciting. Like many maize-based crispy snacks the rings are a bit dry, but not terribly dry. I mean, these are OK but I wouldn't bother getting another packet. And if my pizza tasted as dull as this I wouldn't buy that sort of pizza again either. Sorry Pai.

Of course, my issues with the slightly pale taste could be that I am not an Italian. We will never know.

Obviously Pai say all sorts of grandiose things about their products, both on the packaging and on the not very impressive website (weirdly you have to download a sort of attachment to get any information) and they seem particularly proud of the fact that this snack is baked not fried. At least, speaking (or perhaps reading) not a lot of Italian, I am extrapolating from the many other packets of crispy snacks I have read so I expect that is what this means: "Infatti, graze alla cottura al forno e ideale per un break leggier e ricco di gusto".  Yes, these crisps are oven baked (technical term there) and are ideal for a tasty snack... I translate badly!

Don't forget to rispetta l'ambiente and throw the packet away responsibly.