Lay’s Strong Hunting Sausage

Right, let’s start by saying that I am pretty sure the flavour of this crinkle cut crisp is Hunting Sausage; not Strong Hunting Sausage. I think the strong relates to the “heat-ometer” shown on the packet.

According to the super useful, but not always tremendously accurate, google translate, this is a packet of chips (or crisps) for beer. 

I find it an interesting idea that some crisps are apparently created specifically to eat while drinking beer. This discriminates against people who don’t drink beer, or can’t drink alcohol. And gives the weird idea that you cannot enjoy this crisp without a bottle of beer. And, much worse, shows that this crisp is marketed at men. I really don’t approve of sexism in crisps. Yes, I am well aware that a lot of women drink beer, but the concept of beer chips seems definitely aimed at men. The strong flavour is another clue.

This packet of crisps, which I found on eBay (it’s amazing what you can buy on eBay), has lists of ingredients in Russian, Kazakh, Kyrgyzs, and Georgian, which is a beautiful script but I did draw the line at trying to plumb that one into google translate. Sorry everyone. So, anyway I guess Lay’s sell them across a great swathe of what used to be the USSR.

I know I said it would be cheating to order fancy crisps online, but hey! this is the time of coronavirus so how else am I going to find an exciting crispy snack to taste test?

And after a great deal of effort (using the Cyrillic alphabet) I can tell you that the flavour is built with beef, onion, garlic, chilli, coriander and rosemary. At least, I think I can. I’m sure you lot imagine the Chef and I just prance about munching crisps the entire time. In face I seldom prance. And in this case I put in quite a lot of effort copying the very tiny Russian script on the packet onto my iPad in order to translate it for you.

And silly me. I had imagined the sausage would be made from the hunter’s bag. Perhaps with the deer or pheasant or boar he shot. But a little research leads me to think it’s actually a tasty snack the hunter packs in his bag to sustain him (or her) on the hunt. There are German and Polish versions of these sausages too.

The Chef seemed to enjoy these crinkle cut crisps but I confess I’m not that keen myself. The drips themselves are fine, but I wasn’t that mad about the taste. Perhaps that’s because I don’t drink beer? But I would like Tech Taste Tester to give his opinion: he is a big fan of meaty crisps which I usually am not.

A fascinating crisp flavour though. Not something that would occur to UK crisp manufacturers I imagine. But perhaps that’s because you don’t get simply squadrons of people rushing out to shoot wild animals in the U.K. the way you do in countries like Poland, Germany, Russia, or even Switzerland.

Photo by Tech Taste Tester (stolen off Instagram)

PS When the Chef and I escaped Swiss lockdown and made it back to London I was able to pass on the remains of the packet (about half) to Tech Taste Tester. I have now received his report. He says, “I can confirm these are pretty lovely crisps. The crunch is nice - the texture reminds me of some other crisps and maybe it’s non British crisps? Our crinkle is usually denser or something. The flavour is nice - not sure why there’s a STRONG-O-METER as they’re not particularly spicy/hot. One nice fact is they don’t make your hands smell awful which some meat crisps do.” So now we have the opinion of a meaty-flavour crisp expert.