Tesco Finest Limited Edition Roquefort with Roasted Chestnuts Hand Cooked Crisps

Well, apologies are in order as I’ve been offline for a while. I caught a horrendous cold in France in September and, while it only lasted two weeks (only!), it left me feeling I didn’t fancy crisps. Or writing about them.

But taste tester from the New Forest noticed I hadn’t updated the blog in a while. She was very polite about it but I thought I ought to pull my finger out.

So. A Christmas special. Lots of people eat blue cheese at Christmastime don’t they? I’m not sure why particularly. Perhaps blue cheeses have historically ripened at this time of year? Or maybe it’s that blue cheese seems a bit fancier than any old cheese so why not eat it when you’ve stuffed yourself silly on turkey or ham. Actually, I have no idea what countries other than the UK think about blue cheese, and here’s the thing, Roquefort is of course a French cheese not the traditional British blue: Stilton.

And chestnuts? Also a winter delicacy. People make a stuffing for the turkey with chestnuts. They buy roasted chestnuts from market stalls. They sing about roasting them over an open fire.

So I suppose maybe putting the two together makes sense for a limited edition Christmas special. Except I don’t like either of these flavours so the combination sounds pretty grim to me. But you know me if you’ve read this blog before. You’ll know that thinking something sounds horrible doesn’t stop me buying it and trying it out on the reluctant taste testers.

Now then. Back to the taste tester from the New Forest. When she saw this packet of crisps she was extremely dubious. She expounded at length on how one year her family made a chestnut stuffing for their turkey, and how she didn’t like the taste at all, and how it infused the whole turkey with its nasty (her opinion, obviously) taste which was a bit of a disaster for her Christmas dinner.

But guess what? After a faltering start it turns out she quite enjoyed this crisp. Quite a large bowlful got eaten - as usual the taste testers lost no opportunity to disagree with me - and then the Chef ate the rest of the packet by himself. So once again, it’s just me.

I was in Tesco again a while after buying this packet of crisps, looking for something else, when a young woman with obviously severe learning difficulties approached me. She wanted help getting a packet off the shelf. She said her cat likes these crisps!