Tesco Finest Smoky Barbecue Pulled Pork Hand Cooked Potato Crisps

How times have changed. Back in September 2014 the reluctant taste testers and I tried a Pulled Pork crisp from Walkers which I described as "exotic"!

These days of course pulled pork is everywhere and may indeed have already passed its peak. Peak pulled pork? Who can say? Food fads zoom past so quickly these days I feel I hardly have time to keep up.

The trouble is, my poor mother was brought up in a household where rice was used in a pudding or not at all; pasta was viewed with deep suspicion (another pudding ingredient perhaps?) and bananas reserved for adults only. It's hard to escape such crippling conservatism but when we moved to North London we had access to an unlimited supply of proper salamis and other cold meats from a genuine Jewish deli. A lucky escape from the luminous orange salami sold by the butcher by the bus station in Southampton next to the sinister brawn and chitterlings. No other butcher in the city sold salami at all.

And so I got stuck in the glory of European food; never really felt the need to move on to Asian, or even American cuisine, and it does hold you back a bit if you don't eat fish or seafood.

So anyway, back to the pulled pork. Which now seems quite a normal flavour for a packet of crisps. Partly because in the last few years crisp flavours have got more and more complicated - or bonkers.

So what did the reluctant taste testers and I think? A good meaty aroma of barbecue, a good crunch, lots of flavour dust and the savoury taste of slow-cooked pulled pork basted in a smoky Southern-style barbecue sauce so says the packet. Quite a lot of flavour; really quite testy.

I don't think the flavour is really individual enough to stand out from lots of other meaty crisps but you might feel differently.

M&S Spirit of Summer Lamb Kofta & Yogurt Hand Cooked Crisps

In the middle of June I went into the office to talk about going back to work a couple of hours at a time. And I took in a packet of crisps I bought at the M&S branch next to the Royal Free Hospital because I gathered that all the reluctant taste testers were suffering terrible crispy snack deprivation.

Dutch taste tester said she'd already tried this crisp and it wasn't bad. And it isn't bad. It just doesn't taste of lamb. Or lamb kofta. Or yoghurt. So that's a shame; unless you don't fancy the idea of Lamb Kofta flavour crisps. In which case why would you buy this packet in the first place?

So here's a photograph of the summery packaging. I guess I wasn't as well as I thought I was back in June. Still not fully recovered (although lots better) and bright enough to wonder why this half eaten packet of crisps was sitting around. Well wonder no more.. because here we are. 

KP Snacks Penn State Pretzels Sour Cream & Chive

I wandered in to speak to Tech taste tester while he was eating his lunch and found he was feasting, all on his own, on a packet of sour cream & chive mini pretzels.

I don't usually buy pretzel-style crispy snacks.... although I don't really know why not. And in this case what a mistake. Because this is a lovely tasty snack; lots of sour cream & chive flavour dust chucked over a pile of crispy little pretzels. 

I only had the one, because this was part of Tech taste tester's lunch, but I was quite impressed.

My only real issue is that all the flavour dust gets eaten first however hard you try, and then there's nothing but a small biscuitty twirl or shards of same; depending how hard you've crunched.

A fine crunch at lunch and perhaps something to try again in the New Year (which as I write has not yet arrived).

I see the reluctant taste testers and I tried the Original Sea Salt version of this crispy snack back in January 2016. I also see we quite enjoyed it.

Bobby's Spirals Prawn Cocktail

Back in the summer the Graffiti Artist recommended Bobby's crisps to me.

Graffiti Artist tells me Bobby's are big in the North (he's a professional Mancunian so perhaps not in the real North) and top quality. I thought he might have forgotten he promised to parcel some up for my Christmas present, and it turns out I was right; but I wasn't certain of that when I saw some packets in the local Post Office (first time I've ever seen them) so I bought a couple to see what all the fuss was about.

Prawn Cocktail. And spirals. I love a spiral crispy snack so despite not being a mad keen prawn cocktail fan I bought these anyway.

They're twisted! says the vribant pink packaging and Big Name Snacks... they're class acts! Well, I hope I manage to track down some Snax or Beef Grills as shown on the back of this packet. They look interesting.

There is nothing fishy about this tasty crispy snack (a point in their favour thought Tall taste tester), more of a sort of vinegary tomato ketchup flavour. A little bit too much vinegar perhaps but I think most of the reluctant taste testers rather enjoyed this spirally snack.

Pretty good we thought.

One of the taste testers asked me who owns Bobby's?  Apparently Bobby's Foods plc of Bromsgrove. A proper British company then. Family owned perhaps?

Pret a Manger Vegetable Crisps Parsnip, Sweet Potato & Beetroot

I don't normally buy vegetable crisps because there are simply so many potato snacks of all kinds that life seems too short to branch out into vegetable snacks. I mean, I've posted about 800 mostly potatoey crispy snacks. Seriously 800? That seems an awful lot doesn't it?

Yup. Just boasting. And you know what? I really haven't scratched the surface of available crispy snacks.

Well, I may not buy vegetable based crispy snacks but Tall Elegant taste tester doesn't follow my rules and she picked up this packet when she rushed out to Brent Cross at lunchtime. You've got to eat lunch after all, and I was pleased to try a sample of her choice.

I think I tried a bit of parsnip. It was wonderfully tasty. Nicely crunchy and pleasantly salted. Very nice indeed. And Tall Elegant taste tester thought this was a pretty good packet of (not actually) crisps.

Pret a Manger crisps are usually vepppaand (what do you suppose my iPad meant here? I have forgotten what I wrote yesterday and am quite baffled at this weird word!) Tall Elegant taste tester and I decided this was no exception. (No. No clue what we decided.)

Well, baffled by the above I may be, but there's still time to tell you that the packaging here is tip top. Very simple, very clever. Very handsome snail.