I was looking for something quite un-crisp related on Amazon when it did that thing of recommending a product you find yourself unable to resist. Oh no! A packet of crisps called Thingz from Zimbabwe.
Well! Knowing that I will never visit Zimbabwe (never say never but it does seem wildly unlikely) I thought why not? And thanks to the annoyingly efficient Amazon Prime delivery system here they are.
So, you're a crispy snack company based in Zimbabwe, and for the hard of geography readers that's in Southern Africa (alright, I know you knew that), and naturally you decide on a Mexican theme for your snack. Why not?
Thingz (says the packaging) the Spicy Siesta Snack for Desperados! And the Desperado has presumably gorged himself on Thingz and fallen into a deep slumber under the shade of his Mexican hat and a selection of Saguaro cactuses such as you might find in Southern Arizona and Western Sonora in Mexico.
But oh dear, what a disappointment. I offered these puffed corn rings to the reluctant taste testers, to the Chef and even the Chef's brother. And none of us like them.
I think the taste is sort of curry-ish (but not in a good way) and there's a hint of something from my childhood that I can't put my finger on (and not in a good way either). You can't tell what the flavour might be aside from "spicy" because the packet simply says flavouring. I can only suppose, given the packaging design, it must be meant to be a sort of Mexican chilli.
And the texture doesn't have a light bubbly crunch as you might suppose, but degenerates quickly into cotton wool. Which then glues itself to your teeth in an unpleasant fashion.
Sorry, but we are not impressed.
I tried to find out more about this crispy snack but beyond the fact that it seems to be called Willards Thingz (confusingly Willards does not appear on the packet at all), there's not a lot I could find. Nothing about Cairns Foods either. The link to Cairns Foods on the packet defaulted to a site called Thousand Military (very odd) with links to Nespresso Expresso, Military jobs, Food Industry jobs in Canada and Dubai and Nursing jobs in Zimbabwe. Very very odd indeed.
Thanks to the wonders of the internet search engine I did discover that Zimbabweans eat a lot of corn snacks but nothing about their preferred flavours. Except Willards also produce Cheas Naks, a cheese flavoured corn chip, and Flings (flavour unknown).
I have no idea at all if Mexican food is popular. But you never know.
Sudden thought: what a shame Thingz aren't cactus-shaped.
Unfortunately this giant 150g packet is too large to fit into my scanner. But it does feature a little guy throwing his rubbish away responsibly so here he is, on the back of the packet, plus a lot of cactuses.
