Walkers Crispy Crackers Cheddar Cheese

New! The great taste of Walkers on a cracker. New! Tasty crackers seasoned with the unmistakably delicious taste of Walkers.

Well, there is no denying that these oven baked crispy crackers are tasty. I'm not sure that the taste is unmistakably a Walkers taste, but the packaging doesn't go quite that far. The aroma is cheesy, and the tasty flavour is cheese with a little hint of onion. Or so it seems; there isn't any onion listed as an ingredient but it could perhaps be part of the mysterious "Flavouring". And then at the end you get the salty/sweet taste of the cracker itself.

Lovely thin crackers too. Mostly not even 2mm thick. But this does make them quite fragile and I noticed that even at the top of the packet there were quite a lot of broken pieces. This is obviously a bit of a problem. The broken crackers are  bit sharp; maybe they fight their way out of an ordinary style crisp bag? Maybe that's why the bag has been designed with 4 sturdy seams and a fat gusset.

You can see the broken bits in my photograph but the strange shape of this cracker doesn't show at all well. You can see it on the packet though. Very odd. Call me peculiar if you like but to me they look like little hairdryers. Whatever they look like, it is an odd shape.

Tasty. But it is worth noting that the recipe contains Sulphites and other chemicals like Monocalcium phosphate. Things you don't normally find in a high quality crisp these days.

The Chef reckons these cheesy crackers are a bit bland and not cheesy enough. But he approves of the crunch.

Sadly the little guy throwing his rubbish away responsibly is not a Walkers design but the generic symbol used all over the place in this country. I'm not impressed.

Cathedral City Baked Bites

I read all over the place that Cathedral City is the nation's favourite cheese brand. That may be, but as a (sort of) statistic it's a bit vague and doesn't take into consideration people like me and the Chef who just buy Cheddar cheese. Lots of shops simply sell Cheddar and that suits us just fine.

But I thought we ought to try this little 35g bag of Baked Bites. It's a little baked cheesy biscuit. An oval, slightly sturdier, slightly thicker version of a mini Cheddar. With a fetching Cathedral City logo stamped on the top.

And they are pretty tasty. The recipe has 20% Cathedral City Cheddar cheese. At least, I suppose the Cheddar is Cathedral City - the packaging doesn't actually say so.

And? Not bad. The packet I had seemed to have a lot of breakages but I must confess that the bag has been exported to Switzerland from Kent and then brought home to North London. But anyway, breakages don't affect the taste. or the crunchiness.

Tasty, cheesy, crunchy biscuity bites.

These biscuits are baked by Burtons Biscuit Co using (presumably) Cathedral City Cheddar cheese which is manufactured by Dairy Crest Ltd.

M&S Glastonbury Cheddar & Somerset Cider Toasted Stottie Chips

This new offering from the crispy snack development department at M&S sharply divided the reluctant taste testers. The senior tester and the newest tester really liked them a lot, but the tall taste tester and the Dutch taste tester really didn't. And me? I quite like the taste... I just don't think it works as a crispy snack.

I really do wonder how many people work in crisp development for M&S. It seems that the developers never stop. There is always something new for summer, they have crisps for Halloween, and Christmas crisps (or popcorn), and I'm sort of wondering if these Stottie Chips were created for the festival season?

No. I think that would be too much. It's the Cheddar cheese in these chips that comes from Glastonbury. Which is, after all, a real place and not just the venue for a world famous music festival. Pity really; I've noticed that clothing, shoe and handbag companies produce special lines for festivals these days. Why not special crisps?

On this particular day I wanted a crunch with my lunch but I couldn't find the crispy snack I'd first thought of and discovered this new product instead. There weren't very many bags, and they were tucked away on a different shelf to all the other crisps. And in a different shaped bag too.

Perhaps the squarer than usual bag is to protect the little stottie toasts which are biscuity in texture. Of course all crisps break in the packet to a degree but square or oblong snacks look worse when they're broken than the usual potato shape crisps. Or perhaps M&S are simply changing the design of their bags.

I went online to see what I could find out about these crunchy little biscuits. And found an article in The Straits Times. Which is a newspaper based in Singapore of all places. Well, why not? I just wasn't aware that M&S sold food in that part of the world. And then there's a French blog called Carapomme all about Marks & Spencer products. But not a lot else. Once again I am baffled at how hard it is to read about M&S crisps online.

This crunchy snack is a square little biscuit with quite a hard crunch. The cheddar is not immediately obvious in the taste which is amazingly cidery. There's an added zing from the chives too. I like the smell, I like the taste, but as I said before, I'm not certain that this flavour works with a crispy crunch. It really makes me think of a pork dish I used to make. I don't recall the recipe exactly but there was a lot of cider involved.

Stottie cake or stottie bread originated in the North East of England (I read). It was heavy and doughy and called stottie because if you dropped it it would bounce. Maybe. When you see antelope bouncing away from predators in the Kruger National Park or on the plains of the Serengeti (or more likely on the Discovery Channel), what they are doing is stotting. However, none of this erudite research explains why M&S decided to use the name stottie for these crunchy little "toasts".

I can't quite make my mind up here but I don't think Stottie Chips work for me. The Chef didn't like them at all. He found them a bit odd. But some of the reluctant taste testers were very impressed. So give them a try.

Thomas J Fudge's Flaky Cheddar Wafers and Fiery Jalapeño Wafers

Perfect for Nibbling says the packaging.

What raindrops are to turnips nibbles are to friendship. Or it could be the other way around: nibbles are to friendship what raindrops are to turnips. In either case: what? There's quite a lot of weird stuff going on with the packaging.

These two biscuits were also chosen for the recent leaving party at work because we were looking for something a little bit posh. And a little bit posh they are.

Both have a soft crunch with almost a home-made feel, although I think you would struggle to make little biscuits quite this thin at home.  The Flaky Cheddar wafers have a gentle cheesy taste, and the Fiery Jalapeño wafers (which you can tell apart from the Cheddar by the little green bits of chilli) have quite a significant fiery hot bite.

Both wafers are rather good. And exceedingly posh.

Thomas J Fudge is a "remarkable bakery" which was established in Dorset in 1916 by the current owners' great-great-uncle Thomas J Fudge. According to the packaging he was a dapper chap with a distinctive moustache. His bakery is described as remarkable and Dorset is beautiful and bountiful. His buns were buttery, his bread was brilliant and his biscuits were the business. Or so the packet claims. And the family continues Thomas J's remarkable, edible work. Or so they say.

The biscuits come in a plastic baggie encased in a smart cardboard box. And in the side of the box is a scalloped peep hole through which you can see the wafers of your choice.

The family Fudge recommends ice cold white wine with the Flaky Cheddar wafers; delicious with a portion of witty banter. Or try the Fiery Jalapeño wafers with cooling yoghurt dips, bubbly beverages or something rich and red; perfect with plenty of hysterical laughter. So; many instructions on how best to enjoy your wafers.

Great to fancy up your drinks party. Some of these were eaten at the party and the rest were eagerly snapped up by the reluctant taste testers the next day.

Waitrose Crisp & Savoury all butter Cheddar twists

Here's a cheese straw-style crispy crunchy snack from Waitrose.

Obviously shop-bought but very tasty and fabulously buttery in a great almost home-made way. Not obviously cheesy but without the cheese I imagine this crispy snack would be a little bit dull.

And they don't fall apart as soon as you bite into them. Because I am a bit prone to dropping crumbs down my front this is a great plus.

We bought these for a leaving party at work and the reluctant taste testers and I liked them a lot. I think the trustees did too.

The cheesy twists come in a silver baggie inside a cardboard box. Nothing fancy but very nice.

Tyrrell's Proper Popcorn Mature Cheddar Cheese

And here we have an amazingly yellow packet of cheese flavour popcorn. Which is sadly not cheesy yellow in colour but just ordinary white like ordinary popcorn.

But very cheesy tasting. In fact, a good deal more cheesy tasting than the average allegedly cheese flavoured crisp. Which, in my surveys, I have noticed don't really taste terrifically cheesy.

Nice popcorn. Well popped and fluffy with no unpopped kernels at the bottom of the bag, and only a few really small chunks of popcorn. So, top popcorn.

I really wasn't sure how mature cheddar cheese and popcorn would combine but the answer is (drum roll please) extremely well. Huzzah!

Unfortunately of course this means that when carrying out my scientific taste taste I failed to stop at "that's enough" and carried on regardless. Let's hope popcorn counts as one of my five-a-day.

Tyrrell's have helpful (and fun to read) info on alternative five-a-day choices. And the best thing is they suggest there is nothing terribly wrong with steamed broccoli, herbal tea or sit-ups (in moderation). But there is such a thing as taking it too far....

Less than 100 calories per serving (but I'm not sure what a serving of popcorn is... oh wait... 21g which is 0.74 oz which sounds like noting at all except of course popcorn is very light); nothing artificial (no funny stuff whatsoever); gluten free (in case you were wondering), vegetarian friendly (free from animals). Avoid embarrassment, serve Tyrrell's.

And another frankly bonkers packaging design from Tyrrell's who just can't stop printing weird and wonderful black and white photographs on their packets. On the bag it says : Head cheesemaker Doris was known for being highly mature.  Yes. That's under the photograph of a nurse leapfrogging over a milk churn!

Tesco Finest Hand Cooked Mature Devonshire Cheddar & Festive Beetroot Chutney

Here's another exotic crisp from the Tesco finest Christmas range. Another crisp which sounds as though it comes from a Michelin starred restaurant rather than from a supermarket.

The packaging tells me I have a bag of Mature Devonshire Cheddar & Festive Beetroot Chutney Crisps, and then the subtitle (as it were) says tangy cheese and earthy chutney with a hint of chilli and Brazilian orange.

Well! And as you can see from the photograph the crisps are an interesting mottled red. Most of the red seems to be flavour dust. You can lick it off. But there are orange bits as well which seem to be actually part of the crisp. I think there's more of a hint of orange. And I wonder why it is Brazilian orange rather than any other?

I'm not sure I can detect any beetroot in the flavour but the orange is very definite. Of course beetroot and orange go well together. I used to have a very good recipe for baked beetroot with orange juice and cheese. Delicious.

I notice that sugar is first on the list of seasoning ingredients which is no surprise; these are rather sweet crisps. In fact, the flavour reminds me of - well I'm not quite sure  - maybe a cheesecake mix or perhaps the beginnings of a cake with the sugar creamed into the butter and orange zest folded in.

And here's an odd ingredient: mushroom powder. What do you suppose that contributes to the mix? Oh and the chillis are grown at the South Devon Chilli Farm.

Once again we know that the potato variety is Lady Rosetta and the field they were grown in is River Peace. In Devon. I think another of the Tesco crisps were grown in that field. These crisps are suitable for vegetarians and contain no artificial flavours, colours or MSG. And many of the ingredients come from... Devon.

A very unusual crisp in flavour and colour. The crunch is perhaps a little more crunchy than the other Tesco Finest I have tried but still very good. The cheesiness is far more in the background than I was expecting but none the worse for that. They're really different.

And once again, although I find I quite like these crisps I don't want to eat an entire packet. I think perhaps it's because the flavour is too busy. Returning to the Michelin star restaurant analogy, I've never really wanted to eat in one because when I've looked at the menus the food all looks much too complicated. These crisps are too complicated for me!

Very handsome packaging though. A lovely soft beetroot red fading into brown at top and bottom.

Pepperidge Farm Finz! ® Cheddar

Finz! ® are tiny baked crackers made in Connecticut, USA. The snack that smiles back ® and also the snack that blasts other snacks out of the water.

Wow! Or not.

These are quite tiny fish-shaped cheesy biscuits. The cheesiness is nice and it is unusual to find a cheesy snack which actually tastes of cheese. Well, they ought to taste of both cheddar and blue cheese as they are both on the list of ingredients. And there's onion and garlic and stuff in the flavouring too.

However, the biscuit part lets the side down I think. It's very dry. Almost like pastry and it seems that the flavour is all on the outside. So you can lick it off. And then throw the taste free biscuit away. No! I shouldn't recommend any such thing. It's a disappointment. I thought these would be rather fun and it turns out they're a little bit dull.

It's true though; most most of the little fish do have a great big smile. And a little eye. The fish on the packaging (he's called Finn ®) wears dark glasses and smiles cheerfully out at us, his adoring public. And the name Finz! ® uses a little fish as the dot on the i. So a lot of thought has gone into this product.

The blurb on the side says "We're bakers but we're parents too. That's why we bake these crackers the way we do... never fried and with plenty of smiles." I'm not fully convinced that smiling while you cook makes a better product but I had thought (before reading the blurb) that perhaps these might be the sort of thing parents buy for their children - as opposed to the sort of crispy snack that children choose for themselves.

I think these would work very well if you had 5 or 6 different sorts of crispy snack on offer at a party. But I wouldn't be able to wolf down a whole packet. Haven't managed to finish the packet a week after I opened it.

Having taken a look at the Pepperidge Farm website my worry about Goldfish Crackers has been solved. I knew about Goldfish because of a joke on The West Wing when Danny wants to give CJ a present and someone says that CJ loves goldfish so he buys her a glass bowl with a goldfish swimming in it. And of course what CJ loves is the crispy snack. Ha ha ha. The goldfish bowl subsequently became a subtle plot device with all sorts of little models for the fish to swim around but that's another story and anyway you can read all about the adventures of Gail the fish here but I am sure there are many other sites with similar information.

But I've never seen the Goldfish crispy snack on sale in this country. I'm pretty sure not. Although I did spot them in Verbier once. Anyway, I was puzzled that Finz! ® seemed to be just like I thought Goldfish would be. And lo! having looked at the website I find they are Goldfish, but in disguise. I wonder why they've changed the name to sell them in the UK?