M&S Spirit of Summer Paprika Hand Cooked Crisps

Used to be you could only buy paprika flavoured crisps in mainland Europe where paprika is a popular flavour. I've written a few posts on Euro crisps (especially Zweifel Paprika crisps found only in Switzerland) but I'd never seen them here.

Until I found The Real McCoy's Ridge Cut Paprika crisps when we went to Avebury two years ago.

And now here's this very nice crisp from Marks & Spencer. You probably know that crisp manufacturers routinely use paprika for colour and M&S haven't scrimped on the colour here; this crisp really is a lovely paprika red.

The reluctant taste testers really approved of this crisp. I think all of them went out of their way to tell me how much they enjoyed it. A lot. Which is quite unusual. And I think they would have eaten a second or even a third bowlful only I felt obliged to take half the packet home for the Chef to try. He gets grumpy if the reluctant taste testers eat a whole packet of really good crisps.

This is a very tasty crisp. I hope M&S keep it on next year as I'm sure it would be popular.

M&S Spirit of Summer Roasted Red Pepper Corn Couscous Chips

I found this half packet of crisps at work on a Monday: abandoned since the previous Friday I suppose. I suspect they may belong to Senior taste tester but he's not in until Wednesday and the packet hadn't been clipped shut so there's an element of staleness here. And it's just possible I may have stolen half a packet of crisps. Oh dear. Please don't follow my example.

Roasted red pepper corn couscous chips with parsley, mint and lemon. Wow! This is Marks & Spencer at it's complicated crispy snack best. Just how many flavours can you ram into one hexagonal crispy snack?

The list of ingredients is quite long and features dried chickpeas, chickpea flour, maize flour and 14% cooked corn couscous. Plus of course, the red peppers. And for flavouring caraway seeds, onions,  parsley, garlic, black pepper, mint, turmeric, coriander and lemon oil. Sounds complicated.

Not bad. Surprisingly lemony with a minty aftertaste. I'm not sure about the texture; but as I said the poor things had been left open all weekend so were not at their best.

M&S Spirit of Summer BBQ Jerk Jumbo Coated Peanuts

Another packet of peanuts? Well, apparently yes.

Tall Elegant taste tester provided them as a Friday afternoon snack. As I said the other day M&S are getting rid of their Spirit of Summer stock and I expect she found these with the weird nuts & coconut combo that seems to have been vastly reduced.

I found the BBQ Jerk coating on these nuts seriously hot, and not particularly BBQ. But possibly (I've never had it) they lean toward the Jerk part of their flavouring.

Dutch taste tester took the remains of the pack home with her enthusiastically but history does not relate what the Vinyl Collector thought. Maybe she ate them all before she got home?

Perhaps not the flavour for me, and probably no longer available, but this style of coated nut may be just the thing if you like nuts and lots of hot spices.

M&S Spirit of Summer Chipotle Chilli Coated Cashews

Well you probably noticed I don't usually write about nuts but here's a packet that made it into the office last week.

Cashew nuts coated with chipotle chilli. Not what I would normally buy for myself but certainly very tasty. Rather good in fact. This is a small packet and the nuts are in a very large bowl.

Definitely worth a try.

M&S Spirit of Summer Pina Colada Mocktail Popcorn

The packaging for this exotic Pina Colada popcorn is very minimal. You can see the actual label is very small indeed. Smaller than some clothing labels.

I bought the popcorn because when I mentioned having seen it, History Graduate taste tester got a little excited. Don't know why he didn't buy a bag for himself but perhaps it is my duty to supply the nasty sounding popcorn. I say nasty sounding because I don't like coconut at all so I've never tried a Pina Colada.

Interestingly most of the reluctant taste testers were not put off by the coconut, but by the pineapple. Which I rather like.  I must say even the aroma of coconut really put me off. And although each individual (apparently beautifully puffed) corn kernel has little bits of freeze dried pineapple gummed to it by the tasty "Mocktail" flavouring, it also has desiccated coconut. Which I particularly dislike. So I confess I could not bring myself to try.

The Chef likes coconut though. And he reports this popcorn is OK. The popcorn crunch is just right and he's not bothered by the sweetness of the pineapple.

Half the packet, which I take to be about 100g, was finished by the taste testers but I suspect that this was possibly due to the presence of Extremely Senior Volunteer taste tester who is an adventurous eater and will eat virtually anything. Or so it seems.

Half the packet was eaten by the Chef. So if you like coconut and think you may have similar tastes to the Chef, this may be a fun alternative popcorn choice for you. Sadly not for me.

M&S Spirit of Summer Cajun Spiced Plantain Chips

Well, History Graduate taste tester was braver than I am and he purchased this packet of exotic crispy snacks for us to try. And you know what? This snack is not as sinister as I had supposed it might be.

The aroma from the bag is savoury, almost meaty, but these plantain chips are suitable for vegetarians, even vegans. The flavour is created from a combination of tomatoes, garlic, onion, yeast extract, oregano, cumin, cayenne pepper, black pepper, basil, fennel seeds, and of course the ever popular "flavouring". Not to forget salt and sugar. Without which...

I took a few of these home for the Chef to try. He took a large chip and crunched in... And then there was a sudden silence and an agonised look. A strange expression crossed his face. Somehow I feel he wasn't that fetched. Oh dear oh dear.

And Tall Elegant taste tester and I were rather impressed. Not to mention Tall taste tester told me a couple of days later that he liked them so much he'd gone out and bought a packet. On purpose.

Considering how nasty I have thought this product might be, I thought it was quite a success.

M&S Spirit of Summer Smokey Tennessee Rib

Gracious me! Yet another new crisp flavour from the ever hardworking crisp development department at Marks & Spencer.

And, you've guessed, I wasn't expecting to enjoy them much because you know I don't really care for barbecue as a flavour. But this is a very discreet barbecue flavour and I thought it worked quite well.

But I have no idea what this flavour has to do with Tennessee (I haven't been there) or indeed, what it has to do with ribs. Because it is suitable for vegetarians.

Sigh. I don't know why I bother to type anything at all before looking online. It seems that Tennessee Ribs are a thing and there's about a million recipes out there for me to try should I so wish. The first one (courtesy of Good Morning America) is labelled difficult, and features more than 20 ingredients but mysteriously not the method for making the complicated sounding barbecue sauce and barbecue rub. As we don't have a barbecue or a pit (whatever that may be) I think I'll stick with these crisps.

I think this packet was the choice of the Senior taste tester and the photograph shows the end of the packet so there are more broken crisps than you would usually expect. But it does show the amazing rich red colour. Which doesn't really show on the packet.

M&S Spirit of Summer Lightly Salted Carnival Mix

Red, white and blue potatoes, plantain, orange and purple sweet potatoes and beetroot. Wow, what an amazing mix. And how pretty this mix of crisps is. At times it looks like the fanciest potpourri and you expect it to be rose and violet petals rather than potatoes.

History Graduate taste tester picked these up at the local M&S. I had been aware of them for a couple of weeks, but frankly I was a little worried we were over-dosing on M&S crispy snacks. Well, maybe you can't.

This is rather nice. Very pretty, enormously pretty, and in fact rather tastier than you might suppose. Some crispy snacks which include beetroot or sweet potato aren't quite as nice as what you might hope, but this is all pretty tasty. Nice crunch and a gentle salty taste combine with the crisps to produce an impressive crispy snack. Although some of the reluctant taste testers were not mad for the plantain component. Well, there wasn't too much plantain, and I didn't get to try one so I can't comment.

Another entry in the Spirit of Summer range so the packaging is as gaudy as you might expect.

I've been away from the blog for too long. My computer has been suffering password problems. I can't tell you how many passwords I've had to change recently and I don't know why. It really put me off opening up my computer this last week in case I had to change my password again. Infuriating. (Grrrr.)

M&S Spirit of Summer Creole Spiced Bean & Rice Corn Chips

This is an amazing crisp. Well, it's a corn chip. So, this is an amazing corn chip. And a third choice from Marks & Spencer's new Spirit of Summer range.

I have to say if you don't like your snacks a dark brown, you may not exactly be fetched by the look. Both the images here fail to show just how dark brown these corn chips are. But you would be wrong to turn up your nose and not give them a try.

Because they are pretty tasty. And we did quite enjoy these spiced Creole flavoured corn chips with baked in pieces of red kidney bean & rice. Although I do have to say that I am dubious at best at the thought of baked in rice. What is that exactly?

Anyway, this was History Graduate's choice from the new range. And the reluctant taste testers thought he chose quite well.

Can you tell from the packaging that the last three choices of crispy snack come from the same range? Of course you can.

M&S Spirit of Summer Kentucky Bourbon BBQ Corn Chips

M&S are determined to get us all into the spirit of summer and no mistake! Here is another new crispy snack for summer 2016.

Kentucky Bourbon BBQ Corn Chips it says on the packet. BBQ flavoured corn chips with baked in black pepper and coriander. 

Well, the reluctant taste testers found this crispy snack flavour slightly wanting. It's a little bit hot, but not very. It's not very BBQy. I never had bourbon so I can't say of it tastes authentically of bourbon but it is on the list of ingredients; weird!

The crunch was a bit dull and we felt that the taste was very superficial. Once you've eaten the taste (as it were) then the actual corn chip doesn't taste of much. Which is a shame because the chips are a nice rectangular shape with not many breakages. You can see the baked in black pepper but I don't really know what baked in coriander would look like.

Quite nice. But not as nice as Tall Elegant taste tester, who supplied this packet, had hoped. Interesting idea though. 

And... I just tried another. Perhaps I have damned these with faint praise. Maybe you should try them for yourselves.