Tesco’s Finest Christmas Pudding Flavour Limited Edition Hand Cooked Crisps

 

Wow! Christmas Pudding flavour crisps? What the…?

So what would you expect? I think I was expecting something horrible. But although this crisp flavour is horribly wrong, it isn’t horrible.

I actually quite liked the flavour. It reminded me of raisins and sultanas in a Christmassy sort of a way. Quite a nice sort of a flavour for a biscuit. In fact, a bit like a squashed fly (Garibaldi) biscuit. But if you ask me… oh dear no; not in a crisp. And I was quite surprised that the crispy flavour of potato, which you wouldn’t normally think to be too strong, was in fact punchy enough to fight back against the fruit.

Cliffs of Moher taste tester came round for a drink and on one tasting decided this crisp flavour was totally wrong. And refused to try another. She said she thought the flavour would be good for a scented candle. I’m not sure if this is a good thing or not. She likes scented candles. I don’t.

The Chef thinks they are weird. 

As ever with Tesco Finest the crisps are on the large size with a good crunch, and rather darker than your average crisp. I don’t know how this flavour was created because the ingredients list only says ‘spices’.

The Chef tried again. He still thinks these crisps are too weird. And I am sorry to say that we couldn’t bring ourselves to finish the packet. That doesn’t happen very often.

Bought from a giant branch of Tesco where I also had a new passport photo taken.

Tesco Finest Limited Edition Sweet Potato with Cheese Fondue Hand Cooked Vegetable Crisps

Oh dear. What was Mr Tesco thinking?

Tall Elegant taste tester and I took a snap decision to throw these sweet potato crisps away before the rest of the reluctant taste testers had the chance to try. Noble Friend smelled the overpowering... I really hardly know how to describe it... and didn't try to stop us.

These crisps had a far too strong would-be-cheesy taste, and an aroma that pervaded half the office before we had a chance to stop it. And a frankly horrible taste not far off soap. Let’s just say we were very unimpressed. Oh dear.

Tall Elegant taste tester was much more polite than me: she didn't open up the bin and spit hers out.

I’ve got to say that I had my doubts about this flavour when I saw the packet but I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so nasty. Perhaps a lucky escape for all of us that this was a limited edition flavour.

The Chef's brother (not technically my brother-in-law but you get the picture) gave me this packet of crisps for Christmas. Impressive! One of the very nastiest crisps the reluctant taste testers and I have tried.

We spend quite a lot of time in Switzerland (lucky us) and have fondue quite often. It never tastes like this.

Tesco Finest Limited Edition Camembert with Rosemary Hand Cooked Crisps

No I'm sorry. This flavour is just too weird for me. The crisps smell far too strongly of rosemary (obviously rosemary is in the title so you expect some, but just the same...such a huge waft.. I wasn't expecting that). And a waft of Camembert too.

Seriously, what possessed the crisp development team at Tesco that this combination of flavour was a good idea?

The reluctant taste testers’ Christmas lunch was at a nice little restaurant in Hampstead and featured rosemary bread. Which was simply delicious. To be honest, I could have eaten just the bread (with butter) and been perfectly happy, and pretty well fed. I’d go back for the rosemary bread alone.

But rosemary doesn’t work well here. And the crisps were not popular with the reluctant taste testers. Or me.

Sorry about that, Mr Tesco.

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!

Tesco Finest Smoky Barbecue Pulled Pork Hand Cooked Potato Crisps

How times have changed. Back in September 2014 the reluctant taste testers and I tried a Pulled Pork crisp from Walkers which I described as "exotic"!

These days of course pulled pork is everywhere and may indeed have already passed its peak. Peak pulled pork? Who can say? Food fads zoom past so quickly these days I feel I hardly have time to keep up.

The trouble is, my poor mother was brought up in a household where rice was used in a pudding or not at all; pasta was viewed with deep suspicion (another pudding ingredient perhaps?) and bananas reserved for adults only. It's hard to escape such crippling conservatism but when we moved to North London we had access to an unlimited supply of proper salamis and other cold meats from a genuine Jewish deli. A lucky escape from the luminous orange salami sold by the butcher by the bus station in Southampton next to the sinister brawn and chitterlings. No other butcher in the city sold salami at all.

And so I got stuck in the glory of European food; never really felt the need to move on to Asian, or even American cuisine, and it does hold you back a bit if you don't eat fish or seafood.

So anyway, back to the pulled pork. Which now seems quite a normal flavour for a packet of crisps. Partly because in the last few years crisp flavours have got more and more complicated - or bonkers.

So what did the reluctant taste testers and I think? A good meaty aroma of barbecue, a good crunch, lots of flavour dust and the savoury taste of slow-cooked pulled pork basted in a smoky Southern-style barbecue sauce so says the packet. Quite a lot of flavour; really quite testy.

I don't think the flavour is really individual enough to stand out from lots of other meaty crisps but you might feel differently.

Tesco Finest Strawberry & Dark Chocolate Popcorn with a Kick of Black Pepper

Good Heavens! I nearly forgot to write up this strawberry and dark chocolate popcorn. And now all I have left is the empty packet. However, before the packet was empty you could see the popcorn through  a clear circle in the front of the packet.

What did I think? Not bad. Not totally to my taste; I like the chocolate and the pepper but I wasn't so sure about the strawberry; but the popcorn is good. Not spoiled with loads of sharp corn skin. You know? When the popcorn hasn't popped properly and hasn't all gone wonderfully fluffy and light. You'd be surprised how much popcorn the reluctant taste testers and I have tried that had far too many nasty sharp bits.

I think some of the reluctant taste testers were quite taken with this popcorn, and the Chef seems to have been keen too. I always try to bring some of the crispy snack home for him to try. Sometimes the remains get eaten, sometimes not, and in this case all I have left is an empty packet. I asked what he thought? "It was good, tasty", he tells me. "Some bits had too much chocolate on. But that's just a moan."

So a minor moan there, but no popcorn left. And seriously though: too much chocolate? I never heard the Chef complain about that before. I think a very picky Chef managed to finish this popcorn with hand-drizzled Belgian dark chocolate despite his niggly complaint.

Tesco Finest Sea Salt & Black Pepper

Another Sea Salt and Black Pepper crisp. It's a good simple flavour, invented relatively recently but none the worse for that, and this is a pretty good example. Salt. And black pepper. A combo that usually works very well.

Not complicated but tasty. I'm sure this particular version would work brilliantly with a sour cream and chive dip (or any other dip for that matter). And I reckon you could probably heat it in the oven as an accompaniment to a turkey and stuffing sandwich.  We don't have turkey, but it would work well with chicken and bread sauce I'm sure.

Sea salt and black pepper crisps and brussels sprouts sandwich? Could be.

Give it a try. Go on. You know you want to.

Tesco Finest Gouda & Edam Crispies

When I went to Tesco the other day I could not resist picking up this little cardboard box of Gouda & Edam  Crispies. It is pretty obvious to me that this is a blatant copy of the totally fabulous ROKA Cheese Crispies from the Netherlands.

Now I am completely addicted to the utterly fabulous ROKA Cheese Crispies; my very favourite crispy snack in the universe (EVER), and the very first I can remember eating. There, are I know, photographs of me eating very fine cut potato chips (we called them chipples) aged about 3. But you can't see them because (a) I don't actually remember the incident, (b) I was a fat little girl and the photographs aren't flattering, but (c) I do remember eating ROKA Cheese Crispies when I was 4.

Anyway, I was interested to see how Tesco got on.  Pretty good. The packaging isn't as good as it might be but this is a sturdier snack than the one it strikes to emulate.

Not really a crispie (don't think rice crispy because that's quite a different thing) but nonetheless this is a very nice crispy snack. Cheesy, tasty. Definitely worth the try.

Tesco Finest Limited Edition Candy Cane Hand Cooked Potato Crisps

Candy Cane flavour crisps? What does that mean? Well, to people of my generation candy canes were things we only saw in Tom & Jerry cartoons (The Night Before Christmas probably features candy canes) and maybe fancy sweetie shops if you were lucky. These days you can buy them all over the place; I saw some in John Lewis the other day, but I've never owned or tried one. So I can only suppose they are mint flavoured.

So this is a mint flavoured potato crisp. Is it a limited edition to make you want it? No-one wants to suffer FOMO. Or is it a limited edition because Tescos got cold feet and thought it wouldn't sell? I hope not because I see that 100% of profits from the sale of this crisp go to the Trussell Trust which co-ordinates a nationwide network of food banks, and Fareshare which is a charity aimed at reducing food waste and relieving food poverty. Both great causes to support as many people these days struggle to feed their families.

And the crisps? Well by no means as weird as you might think. The mint is quite a delicate flavour and works with the crisps better then you might suppose. Nice crunch too. Give them a try and see what you think.

Tesco Finest Mature Cheese Oat Nibbles

Obviously a posher snack than your average because there's more packaging involved. Always the way. And obviously you get fewer snacks.

Hand baked, melt-in-the-mouth oat nibbles from a small family-owned bakery in Aberdeenshire. They use an all butter recipe, locally milled Scottish oats and freshly mature cheddar cheese, then bake them in small batches at a low heat for a beautifully soft texture. Says the packet.

Mmmnn.... these little nibbles look surprisingly dull but taste surprisingly good. Certainly very cheesy. And with an oddly cool mouth feel - that must be something to do with the oats. I can't say that they melt in my mouth but I do find them rather tasty.

Nice.

The Chef, who is mixing our Christmas cake as I write, thinks the is a pretty OK crispy snack too. He says the cheesiness kind of creeps up on you. And suddenly these little biscuits turn out to be really very cheesy indeed.

If you feel these little oaty biscuits are a little dry (which I don't) it works very well indeed to add a little application of butter. Probably works nicely with a little extra cheese too.

Tesco Finest Hand Cooked West Country Cream Cheese & Roasted Herb Crisps

New! These crinkle cut crisps from the Tesco Finest range, with aromatic rosemary, chive & garlic were kindly donated by Noble Friend.

And we quite liked them. Tall taste tester said he could eat the entire packet, and both Tech and Dutch taste testers gave enthusiastic reviews.

I have to say I wasn't quite sure. I mean, yes; good crunch, large crisps, nice crinkle cut, and not a bad taste. Which does kind of grow on you.

But as I pondered this flavour it seemed to me that Tesco Finest crisps all seem to taste pretty much the same. It's as though you were to make a pasta sauce, a soup, and a risotto and use the same herbs every time. You have three different dinners but they all taste much the same.

Not quite the same of course. But definitely something to think about.

Nice crisps though.

Tesco Finest Limited Edition Prosecco & Elderberry Crisps

Another Prosecco flavour crisp? Really?

I'm afraid so, crisp fans.

Sweet, delicately fragrant elderberry with the festive fizz of Prosecco says the packet. Luckily it also says Limited Edition.

I think I get it. I really do. The crispy snack technicians working for Mr Tesco, and for Messrs M&S  (Winter Berries & Prosecco anyone?) wanted to provide the most up to date crispy technology for all crisp fans this Christmas. And everyone knows we all drink Champagne and Prosecco and Cava at this time of year because bubbles are somehow associated with celebrations.

But that bubbly fizz on a crisp? It's not for me.

OK. So some people may love this crisp. I can hardly get past the horrible Sodium Bicarbonate fizz even to taste these things. That's a bit unfortunate isn't it?

And some of them are pink. I think the M&S version was a bit less pink. Maybe I'm remembering wrong. But otherwise there isn't a great deal to choose between them. So I'm guessing that whoever it is creates crisps for Tesco does the same for M&S. If you know any different I would love to know.

I went to Tesco twice in search of these crisps because I felt the need to try them. The first time there wasn't even an empty space on a shelf so I came away disappointed; the second time I'd looked on their website and seen they were out of stock but I took the bus anyway and triumphantly carried a packet home. And I put them on the Christmas tea table.

The Chef's nephew tried one and that was enough. The Chef's niece boldly tried three. She wasn't impressed. The Chef's brother had already seen the packet the week before and said "yuk" so there was no hope of getting him to try. The Chef bravely tried three and admired the actual crisps but not the weird fizz. Or the sweet taste.

As always with Tesco crisps these are big and crunchy and beautifully cooked. Great quality.

I'm sorry. We really didn't like these crisps. And I think the Chef's niece said she has two friends who are mad for Prosecco and and they don't get Prosecco crisps either.

The verdict: too weird for us.

Tesco Finest Limited Edition Roast Turkey & Stuffing Crisps

Hmm... here's another roast turkey flavour crisp from Mr Tesco. I wrote about a roast turkey crisp from Tesco last year. It was created for Christmas 2013 but I didn't get around to trying it for a couple of months. I wonder if this is the same recipe?

I wonder especially because I gave the 2013 crisp a fairly rave review. And I'm about to damn this year's edition with relatively faint praise. Could this be because I've tried 150 odd different flavours of crisp since then? I wonder.

Anyway, these turkey flavour crisps are OK. I think you can detect a slight smell of turkey - which is included in the recipe - but mostly it's all about the stuffing flavour. Onions and herbs and garlic. And that unwelcome addition of celery. Yes, I think it may be the same recipe.

As usual with Tesco crisps they are big and crunchy and covered in tasty flavour dust. And the potato variety is different from last time. I know because Tesco are careful to tell us. This time we have Lady Rosetta potatoes grown in a field called Lime Kiln 2. Last time the potato was Hermes and the field, Roundwood.

Please don't run away with the idea that we don't like these crisps. It's just that, well beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, and taste testing I suppose relies on what you've trying lately, what you really liked recently, and what you didn't. And perhaps if this really is the same recipe crisp in a different bag, maybe it shouldn't be? Maybe crisp tastes have moved on?

The Chef & I are celebrating Christmas with chicken and bread sauce. Partly because there are only two of us and turkey is a socking great big bird and we wouldn't eat even a quarter of a small one, and partly because we think roast chicken tastes better. Merry Christmas!

Tesco Finest Limited Edition Brie & Cranberry Crisps

Although the packaging doesn't say so I imagine this Limited Edition crisp was launched with the Christmas market in mind. Tesco seem to be very good at producing Christmas crisps.  I wonder how long this has been going on? I have always enjoyed a packet of crisps but before I started writing this blog I don't think I noticed the seasonal flavours. Of course that doesn't mean very much but as I say, I do wonder when this seasonal crisp thing began.

Of course these crisps are large, of course they have a terrific crunch and of course there's a lot of flavour dust. Not quite so sure about the flavour.

Creamy French Brie with the tart yet sweet taste of juicy cranberries says the packaging (and I do quite like the packaging design). Well the recipe includes Brie powder and the oddly unspecific cheese powder. Plus cranberry juice powder, and dried blueberry flakes. Why the blueberry? I have noticed random added blueberry in other crisp recipes (don't ask me which ones because of course I can't remember) and it would be interesting to know why it is so important to add this fruit to crisps.

So anyway, the recipe does seem to have all the right ingredients. And I really do love a good Brie but I never would have thought to serve it with cranberries. Is that usual?

As I write I'm about to go downstairs for some crispy French bread and Brie but we don't have any cranberries (I don't think we ever have any cranberries) so I can't attempt this recipe / serving suggestion. Call me old-fashioned but I don't think I would if I could.

These crisps do taste kind of cheesy. But it's the wrong sort of cheese. I don't really think the Brie flavour works very well. Not convinced.

Made from Lady Rosetta potatoes grown in a field called Lime Kiln 3.

Tesco Finest Hand Cooked Sweet Chilli Crisps

Classic fragrant spices for a real taste of Asia it says here.

I was going to say that I've not been to Asia so I can't comment. Well, that's not quite true. I spent a stinky and very hot 3 hours or so at the old Hong Kong airport in 1994. If you ever flew in there you'll remember the incredibly scary sight out of the plane windows: apartment blocks apparently only 20 feet away.... and I never ate anything there (it was much too stinky).

And I also spent the night in the Japanese version of a hotel at Stansted Airport. Which was part and parcel of my flight home from Sydney to London Heathrow with Japanese Airlines in 1999. Wow. Breakfast was amazing. I never saw such an astonishing collection of food: breakfast cereals, the usual eggs and bacon etc, stewed fruits and so on; you know the style of thing. But also stewed lotus (which I should have tried but didn't), bowls full of miniature fish: heads and tails and all, tinned spaghetti bolognaise, and chips. It was great. I think I had bacon, scrambled eggs and chips. Well why not?

Anyhow, none of that qualifies me to comment on whether these crisps are a classic taste of Asia or not.

So what have we here? Hermes potatoes grown in Devon. Each potato is peeled, sliced and fried in small batches under the watchful eye of specially trained fryers. No artificial flavours, colour or MSG. Suitable for vegetarians.And the flavour is made up of sugar, salt, onion owner, yeast extract, spices (unspecified), garlic, coconut, bell pepper, flavouring (again unspecified), herbs (no idea which herbs), chilli extract, paprika and lemon grass. Another amazingly complicated recipe.

Not a bad taste. Quite a good chilli zing and a good chilli aroma when you open the bag. Good chilli aftertaste too but not too hot. Lots of flavour dust and a fine reddish orange colour which doesn't really show in the photo. Thick cut crisps. Mostly larger than average. No too many breakages.

It's a good quality crisp. But with all those different ingredients jumbled up together to make the flavour I'm not sure what I should expect. And I do wonder what Tesco was aiming for. Are they looking for a future classic? I think this is too complicated.

Not a bad taste. We quite like it but we're not certain we want to try again. I think maybe some of the very complicated flavours are fun to try but not something you want to go back to again and again. I think the answer is that this is quite a nice flavour but we'd rather stick with something simpler that we know and love like cheese & onion or salt & vinegar. Even though I try loads of different flavours all the time I'm not sure most people are ready to move to something more fancy on a regular basis.

Tesco Finest Goats Cheese & Sticky Chilli Jam Crisps

I was pleased to find this "feature flavour" because I've been wanting to try goat's cheese flavour crisps. I know you can get them in Belgium (although these were described as simply chevre which I suppose could mean goat rather than goat's cheese... no, not really) and France but I've yet to see any to buy. I hope if I do come across them they will be better than these crisps.

The secondary description is creamy goats' cheese from Devon with sweet and sticky jam for a spicy kick. Well, yes..... sort of.

These are great big crisps. Some of them as large as the palm of my hand. A very good crunch and quite a lot of dark orange flavour dust. But the flavour. Oh dear. What a disappointment.

I can hardly detect the goat's cheese. There's a sort of faint breath of what is probably the cheese, a little like some of the sour cream flavours. And the chilli is almost entirely overtaken by the extreme sweetness of the jam. Which is very very sweet. I wasn't mad keen on the Spiced Bramley Apple flavour crisps which you can read about here. And I'm not much struck by these either.

It's an interesting time to launch a goat's cheese crisp. Both the Telegraph and The Guardian have published articles recently about the great goat's cheese shortage of 2014; read the Guardian article here. But perhaps "feature flavour" indicates a limited edition crisp? Possibly more limited than Mr Tesco was anticipating.

There is nothing at all the matter with these crisps except that I don't like the flavour. Call me picky but I don't get this thing for sweet crisps at all.

This packaging detail is charming though and I very much like the idea of a field called Angus. Is the next door field called Richard I wonder?

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.

Tesco Finest Hand Cooked Cornish Sea Salt & West Country Cider Vinegar

So. Not only do crisp flavours get weirder and weirder but the names get longer and longer. It's like something from a Michelin starred restaurant. Salt & Vinegar just doesn't cut it any more so we have Cornish Sea Salt™ (which I'm pretty sure I've not tried in real life) and West Country Cider Vinegar.

Gosh. Who knew that Cornish Sea Salt™ was a trademark? Certainly not me. You know, when I set out in an accidental sort of a way to write about crisps (original intention to write about trees* but there you are) I wasn't expecting to learn so much.

Let's not forget that as with all Tesco Finest crisps the packet tells us that the potato variety is Lady Rosetta (mysteriously a variety not known to the Love Potatoes website but there you are), and the field they were grown in was Exfield. I love this field information. It's no help at all really as we only know the farm is in Devon but it's somehow reassuring to know the field name. Maybe it makes the potatoes seem more erm... local?

Anyhow. I like these. Essentially they are salt & vinegar which is one of the classic flavours but can be awfully sharp and hard on the mouth. These crisps are a very grown up take on salt & vinegar; a gentler version of the classic taste, maybe a post-modern 5 star restaurant version. I think Tesco have done a good job. They smell good too.

These crisps are quite large for the most part. Great crunch, just right. Not too much flavour dust but just enough. And a very gentle, perhaps rather sweet salt and vinegar flavour. Don't get put off - I think this is a good thing.

Weird ingredient: apple powder. I suppose it's to accentuate the cider flavour.

* some tree thoughts available here. But I'm slower at tree stuff than crisps.

Tesco Finest Baked British Gammon with Winter Berries

Well! Crisp flavours just get weirder and weirder don't they?

These interestingly flavoured crisps come in a fine purple packet with golden writing and a golden piggy. Handsome indeed.

But I was rather dubious about trying them. I've tried ham flavoured crisps in the past that were frankly horrible so I have rather avoided trying any ham flavours since then. It was some years ago but some things are so nasty that they really put you off. And then, I really didn't like these.

Obviously I have made it my mission to try as many different types of crisp as possible (and that without eating too many and getting grossly fat!) so maybe I need to be braver in the ham/gammon department because this hand cooked crisp flavour isn't bad.

These are rather rich coloured crisps with a great deal of flavour dust, and they have a wonderful crunch I really liked. The smell is a bit fruity; perhaps that's because the ingredients include dried cranberry and blueberries. That'll be the winter berries then. And obviously there's quite a lot of paprika to enhance the colour.

The gammon flavour is very well realised. Apparently it is slow baked free range pork (which sounds awfully good) that goes into the "British Gammon extract" on the list of ingredients.

As with other Tesco Finest crisps we are told the potato variety; Lady Rosetta. The British Potato Variety Database tells me that this is a red skinned early maincrop variety with light yellow flesh. We know the field name; Riverpeace. And the crisps are made somewhere in Devon.

Once again this is a really interesting flavour, which I surprised myself by quite liking, but I didn't want to eat too many. I took them to the office to see what everyone thought and one or two were not impressed, but even though the others liked the taste, like me they didn't want to try more than a couple.

I think the mark of a great crisp is one where you accidentally eat an entire packet without noticing. Think of the fabulous Provençal flavour crisp by Swiss company Zweifel which you can read about here. Sadly this Tesco Finest flavour does not (ghastly expression) tick the boxes for me.

This was a special flavour for Christmas 2013 so I don't know if it is still available.

Tesco Finest Spiced Bramley Apple Crumble Crisps

Who in the world thought of this weird idea? Presumably Mr Tesco.

So I tried these crisps in a blind taste test both at work and at home with Christmas guests. And got the following responses:

• Weird but quite nice (this tester took some home for a road trip)
• Strange... I'm not sure... 
• Quite the most disgusting thing I've ever tasted - I don't think I can eat anything ever again
• Mmmm seems familiar... what is this flavour?...erm... sort of appley?
• Oo... I know this... is it oriental?
• (sniff sniff) cinnamon? Are these made of apple?
• I'll have a larger one this time, thanks
• From Tesco? We should look out for these.

So a divided response then. I think most people agreed that you get an apple crumble taste. It's the extra crunchy burnt brown bit at the edge of the crumble where apple juice has bubbled up. Whether this is a good flavour (and I admit it is tasty) for a potato crisp is another matter.

The crisps themselves are perfectly normal crisps with a good crunch, a little dark in colour but that's all the spicy flavour dust. The smell is very strongly cinnamon. At least, I think it is cinnamon; the packet somewhat unhelpfully lists "spices" and "flavourings" rather than naming individual elements so these could include clove, mace or nutmeg or even allspice. Who knows? And there's obviously quite a lot of sugar involved.

I can say that the apple element is Bramley, and the potato a variety called Hermes (grown in a field called Porter and picked/dug up on 23 october 2013). Hand cooked in small batches and "tumbled carefully in seasoning" - how exotic that sounds. Suitable for vegetarians.

Quite tasty but I'm not convinced this is a good flavour for a potato crisp. Not convinced this is the "perfect taste of Christmas".