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 U.K. supermarket and basically mocked everything in the shop for being “wrong”. Because everything was a UK product or a U.K. flavour… well, of course. 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.

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But now, despite the fact that this packet is seriously out of date, and the other fact that I have previously announced to the world that I don’t like Hickory Smoke flavour, I’m going to give them a try.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