Serious Pig Snacking Cheese

The packet says pure cheese baked to a crunch, but there is noticeable rosemary in the recipe.

I wasn’t sure about trying this crispy snack but it is quite tasty. Not just cheese, which can be quite overwhelming, but rosemary too. Although it’s still very rich, so don’t try to eat the whole packet at once, a few at a time are quite nice.

I probably wouldn’t buy another packet though. Not sure I am the biggest fan of this style of snack. Maybe the time has come to go back to potato crisps. 

Carr’s Melts Cheese

This delightful crispy snack looks like a cheese biscuit, as in a biscuit to put cheese on, and in fact the website shows a serving suggestion of the cracker (not my preferred word) loaded with what looks like hummus, ham, capers, slices of pickle and chilli, and a cherry tomato. I don’t think these crispy biscuits are sturdy enough for so much stuff. 

These biscuits are called Melts, and they almost do melt when you bite into them, and they scatter lots of crumbs everywhere so you do need to eat them with caution. But to make up for all that, they are just delicious. I don’t think they need any extras piled on top. The name suggests a cheese flavour, but although there is grated cheese on the top, the main flavour is a very gentle onion, tempered with cheese. Yum yum. It’s very possible to eat more than you expected at one sitting.

OK, put that packet down now!

Do be careful if you are planning on visiting South Korea and think this might be a tasty snack for the journey: there are poppy seeds in the recipe. And poppy seeds are illegal in South Korea. Which I didn’t know until I read this article. Definitely don’t take a slice of lemon and poppyseed tray bake.

Golden Wonder Animal Adventures Cheese Flavour Snack

I spotted this completely new to me crispy snack at the Post Office where I was buying more Bobby’s snacks for the girls at work.

Let’s take a look. Obviously aimed at small children; it features Leo the lion, Ellie the elephant and Marcel the monkey. I was just thinking that Marcel was a pretty odd name for a monkey, but wasn’t he a character in Friends? And anyhow I was brought up thinking Zephyr was a normal name for a monkey. Not read the Barbar books? Well then, you wouldn’t know what I’m on about.

Also obviously this is a Pom-Bear snack in disguise. I don’t remember what Pom-Bears are made of (this is a dried potato, maize starch and tapioca snack) but the texture is quite similar. The crunch is soft and slightly bubbly.

The flavour is not very cheesy. Actually there’s not a lot of cheese in the recipe. But that doesn’t seem to matter. The gently savoury taste is very...... tasty.

The reluctant taste testers seemed to quite enjoy this snack. Even ultra picky “that’s not a crisp” Senior taste tester admitted he had eaten too many and must stop.

I liked the elephant shape best.

Oh look at that! This Golden Wonder crispy snack comes from Bobby’s, makers of many fabulous crispy snacks. Well done Google for showing me that. I wonder why they’ve used the Golden Wonder brand? Well, that certainly explains why they were in the same rack with the Bobby’s products in the Post Office.

Cheese-It Original

Little Square cheesy biscuits. Not super exciting we thought  but fairly OK.  I'm sure I have heard of Cheese-Its and I was hoping for more exciting stuff. But as Slightly Red Haired Bristolian said, these are kind of like mini cheddars only not so much.

For some reason I seem to have forgotten to photograph this little square snack. Perhaps because I wasn't that thrilled with them. OK but that's as far as I am prepared to go.

Dinafood Cheetoz Crunchy Snacks Cheese

Regular readers will have noticed I haven't had much to say recently. Unfortunately I haven't been very well and not fancying my food much. And if you don't fancy your food you can't taste test crispy snacks much less write about them.

But lucky for me I have escaped from the local hospital, albeit with piles of drugs to take forever,  and the reluctant taste testers have given me a lovely bunch of flowers and (of course) a mystery packet of crispy snacks. From Iran no less!  Apparently Noble Friend found them but I don't know where.

Noble Friend just rang me up and as it turns out she went to the local Persian shop specially to look for bonkers crisps for me. And this is what she found. How very kind.

I can't tell you much about this crispy snack because the packet blurb is in Arabic script and Russian. Neither of which I can read. Well, since I learned Greek I can read a bit of Russian, but I don't speak the language so that doesn't really help much. They are very crunchy, as advertised on the packet, but not very cheesy, and a little bit greasy tasting. But actually quite nice.

Now that's enough writing for today. I need  rest.

Walkers Market Deli Cornish Mature Cheddar

This is one of the new swanky rang of crisps - sorry, potato chips - produced by Walkers. Market Deli, they say, made with real deli flavours. And real ingredients for an authentic taste. Yes. What a good idea. But hang on.... doesn't that sort of indicate that other crisps produced by Walkers are made with pretend flavours? Or fake ingredients? Could be.

Discover the authentic flavours of Europe's finest markets and delis [it says here] with these delicious deli potato chips,  cut thicker and cooked for longer for that perfect bite. With the full bodied boldness of Cornish mature cheddar - rich with a hint of sharpness, this is a real taste experience.

I don't suppose Walkers want us to ponder the question of authentic flavour too hard. But they do advise us that these crisps are delicious shared with a local craft ale and close friends. And they are so pleased with this new rang of crisps they have a whole new website to tell us about them.

I bought these authentic crisps on a special introductory offer and they are pretty fabulous. What a great cheesy aroma. What a great crunch, rather thicker than the usual offerings from Walkers., good golden colour. And the cheesy taste is very cheesy indeed. No artificial preservatives or colours, made with natural flavours, no MSG. Suitable for vegetarians. And you can tell how posh they are from the hand writing font they use for the weight.

So basically a very good crisp. Everyone liked them a lot. Everyone thought they were definitely cheese flavour (except one taste tester who is pregnant and thinks her taste buds may be affected) and one tester accurately guessed mature cheddar. Although obviously points should be removed for failing to guess the county!

If I happened to find myself crispless (unlikely, I know) I might buy these again because they are rather good. I've tried the balsamic vinegar flavour chips already so maybe I'll save up for a packet of Market Deli tortilla or pitta chips.

Update: I posted this originally in September 2014 but here it is again, because Gina from The Chips Report has recently been rather enthusiastic about these crisps. And it's always nice to see another opinion.

Walkers Cheese, Cucumber & Salad Cream

This is one of the new (presumably limited edition) sandwich filler flavour crisps from Walkers. And what a strange sandwich this would be. Or would it?

I have to say I have never made a cheese, cucumber and salad cream sandwich. Having just typed that I'm sitting here thinking, well, maybe that would be quite tasty. And yes, it probably would be; depending on the cheese of course. From the photograph it could be basic cheddar. But I've never thought of building such a sandwich. And we don't usually have Heinz Salad cream in the house; we have Hellman's Mayo instead. So... you know...

Am I right in thinking that not so long ago Heinz tried to get rid of their Salad Cream? Yup, here we are (I'm afraid this link is from the Daily Mail but it is interesting); in 1989 Heinz considered scrapping Salad Cream. But after a massive public outcry (apparently led by Roy Hattersley MP) the scrappage was quickly cancelled and it seems the product has gone from strength to strength in recent years. Here it is starring in a Walkers crisp flavour!

And oh dear! Do you see what I thought there? "Not so long ago" I wrote. And it turned out to be 1989. Oh dear, oh dear. That makes me feel very old....

Anyway...This isn't a bad crisp. Quite fine cut, a little pale in colour and tasting slightly of little gherkins rather than cucumber. But interesting. It's hard to pick the cheese or the salad cream but most of the reluctant taste testers quite liked these crisps.

It's still a bit weird. In fact, somehow the whole sandwich filler flavour thing is a bit weird. But the way crisps are going I guess you have to come up with new flavours all the time. So why not?

Cheetos Cheese

This packet of Cheetos Cheese came from the world foods section at Tesco. I wasn't sure at first glance whether it was a world food from Ireland or Poland. I mean, at first glance you see Cheetos Cheese, Big Bag, and Hotel Transylvania 2. And this was on the shelf between the Polish and Irish products.

However, on closer inspection, you see w kinach od 9 pazdziernika which, however odd you may find the Irish language, is patently not Irish.

So, here we have a packet of Cheetos from Frito-Lay Poland and imported into the UK by a firm based in Wokingham.

These Cheetos look pretty much how I would expect them to look. And they do taste pretty good with a wonderful light crunch. But I'm not impressed that they are a bit dry. You might say, well all crispy snacks are dry aren't they? Yes, of course. But somehow I felt the after-mouth (if that's a word), and it's not to do with the taste, is a bit dry.

It's also worth pointing out that according to the English language sticky label on the back of the packet there is no actual cheese in the recipe. There is "cheese flavour seasoning" but it contains no cheese. There is monosodium glutamate, disodium gaunylate, and disodium inosinate. Which sounds entirely too much sodium to me. There is milk and whey powder though; which may account for the interesting buttery taste.

It's odd. The packet says cheese so when you crunch in you think you taste cheese. But if you concentrate it's obvious that the taste is in fact butter. Not nasty at all just not what I was expecting.

The Chef, somewhat unhelpfully, says this crispy snack reminds him of something but he can't think what. But he did eat a few and not under duress.

I'm not sure if this packet was issued purely to advertise Hotel Transylvania 2, or as a Halloween tie in. So I thought I'd post them today.

Happy Halloween crisp fans.

PS There's a competition to visit Sony Pictures Animation Studio which (I think) runs until 16 November. So still time to enter if you fancy battling with www.cheetos.pl.

Casino Boules Goût Fromage

I did hope that this little crispy, croustillante, snack would have a squishy cheesy middle. But sadly not.

Basically what we have here is a small ball-shaped version of a Cheesy Whotsit. Only not quite so tasty.

Not a bad little cheesy snack; crunchy, cheesy, easy to pop into your mouth. Quite tasty too. Rather good with a glass of something chilled I expect, and indeed the packet does suggest serving Boules to your friends with an aperitif.

But this is nothing like so fabulous as the all time best ever (in my opinion) M&S Full On Cheese Tasters. Which is basically a clone of the original Cheesy Whotsit but even tastier (in fact, it's so good I have decided to add it to my list of very favourite crispy snacks).

However, we mustn't forget that this is an own-brand snack; produced by French supermarket chain Casino. And own-brand snacks are sometimes not everything one would hope for. Of course I found it at a motorway service station, where Casino runs the shop.

The serving suggestion is a little odd; who serves a crispy snack in martini glass? Perhaps more to the point, who needs a serving suggestion for a crispy snack?

Not bad at all. Just not tremendously special.

And I'm also posting this picture of a wall in the Swiss town of Thun. Not for any good reason, but because my computer chose it completely at random and offered it as a substitute for the pack shot. Computers, eh? But it is a rather fabulous wall in the old part of Thun where the shops are built in a sort of double decker arrangement; upstairs and down. I love the geranium plant poking out of the tiny window.

Walkers Quavers Cheese Flavour

Quavers!

What? I haven't written up Quavers before? And why not? Well, I don't know really.

After all, Quavers is a wonderful cheesy crispy snack. One of my favourites. One of the greats... So I suppose I thought I must have written about it already. But, as you can see, no amount of thinking that you've done something makes it so.

Quavers say "curly little things, Quavers, and no two are the same. Some twistier. Some that wrap around your tongue, but they're all crunchy and meaty, and pleasingly cheesy. So go on pop one in your mouth.. ".

Well, well, Quavers certainly are great. But interestingly I am pretty sure they used to be more yellowy. Considerably more yellowier. Perhaps in what is probably now technically known as "the olden days" the yellow colour was provided by an E number? Nowadays, of course, crisp colours are usually derived from paprika and that would explain why this week's Grab Bag of Quavers is not so yellowy but more pinky orange. I am not sure that the lack of E numbers has affected the taste.

And the taste remains very tasty. Lovely light crunch with just the same wonderful popping effect on the tongue that I remember. All those little bubbles...

And the packet has a great example of the little guy throwing his rubbish away responsibly. I really love the way Walkers design a new character for all their different crispy snacks. Although I do also wonder how many of their customers are as nerdy as I am, and look eagerly to see what the little guy looks like this time!

Lay's Mix Sabor a Pizza & Extra de Queso/Queijo

The Dutch taste tester went to Barcelona the other day and very thoughtfully brought back this 170g packet of Spanish (and Portuguese) crisps for us to try.

I have read about Lay's Mix crisps on other blogs recently. They seem to be appearing all over the world except in the UK of course; we have Walkers Mix Ups instead. So pretty much a universal innovation then.

Although... when I say universal.... I've not seen many crisps featuring in SF films or TV shows (none!) so perhaps that's not quite the right word.

Anyway, the bloggers seem to feel that this new mix of flavours is a good idea. And indeed the reluctant taste testers made away with three large bowls of these crisps which is an enthusiastic response.

These are very nice crisps with a good crunch and a lovely deep golden colour. And there's the problem for me. The packet design indicates that it contains a mix of cheese flavour crisps (queso in Spanish and queijo in Portuguese) and pizza flavour. Apparently pizza is pizza or something very similar in every language I can read; I don't know how you say పిజ్జా which is Telagu for pizza, nor ភីហ្ which is Khmer (according to Google translate).
And that's a fine plan but I felt the cheese crisps, of which I only discovered two (rather tasty), were almost entirely overwhelmed by the pizza crisps. And once again with a pizza flavour crisp I wasn't that impressed. Somehow pizza crisps never taste of that really wonderful pizza you had in Rome - or what about Arthur's Pizzas we used to get on Oxford Street in Sydney? so good - but instead are like the thin floppy ones from the freezer cabinet in the supermarket.

And interestingly most of the reluctant taste testers told me they felt the pizza crisps tasted of cheap frozen pizza, but it didn't seem to stop them enjoying the crisps. Otherwise why eat three bowlsful?

Kubeti Mega Stix Cheese Flavour

Another bag of Bulgarian crispy snacks from Budgens in East Finchley. The reluctant taste testers and I tried the tomato ketchup version earlier this year and found it rather good, so when I saw this bag lurking amongst the chocolate Easter Eggs I thought it would be worth a try.

And yes, these little sticks of extruded potato crunchiness are quite nice. There's a sort of gentle slightly powdery cheesiness, and somehow the more you eat the cheesier they get. And there's an interesting aroma of chips (that's french fries to those of you who call crisps chips), and not a bad crunch. If you look closely they do look disconcertingly like a sliced up washing up sponge but sponges don't crunch like this.

Not bad. Because the taste is so gentle, and so much of these sponge-like sticks is fresh air, I think you could very likely (absent-mindedly) eat the whole 54g packet in one sitting.

Not tremendously exciting but quite pleasant. We decided that we liked the tomato ketchup version a little bit better but there's not a lot to choose between them.

I still think it a little odd that Budgens should stock crispy snacks from Bulgaria. But it's great for me. Otherwise I'd have to fly to Sofia or something. That might not be such a bad thing though; some of the buildings look amazing and there are stunning mosaics. This photograph of St Eudoxia (I think in the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral) is from Wikimedia Commons. It was taken by Elena Chochkova.

KP Hula Hoops Puft Cheese

The packet tells me that Hula Hoops Puft are new. And I confess that I've not seen them before.

Puft. Honestly! Anyway, what you get is a sort of puffed up version of the original Hula Hoops we know so well. And somehow, because this crispy snack is puffed it seems to be much larger than an ordinary Hula Hoop.

You get a huge waft of (rather processed) cheese when you open the bag and the taste is pretty (processed) cheesy too. Lots of dairy products in the ingredients although I suspect that much of the flavour comes from the dried onion, garlic and tomato listed on the packet. And of course the colour comes from paprika as so often.

I was expecting the texture to be softer - like a cheese puff or a Quaver - but in fact they have a good crunchy crunch. Not as hard as regular Hula Hoops obviously.

The packet describes this as a hoopy snack. Which takes me straight back to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Hey you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There's a frood who knows where his towel is. Or words to that effect. Ah, how the mind can be dragged back to 1978. Mind you; Douglas Adams would have struggled with his predictive text when writing that today.

Not bad. But I think I will stick to regular Hula Hoops next time.... although I do have some Hula Hoops Puft Ready Salted to try.

M&S Poisonous Scorpions Cheese

Last year Marks & Spencer produced a packet of poisonous scorpion crisps for Halloween. Although they looked really great - very scorpiony and pale green into the bargain - I wasn't mad keen on the pickled onion flavour.

This year another packet of scorpions but now they are cheese flavoured corn snacks very similar to M&S's Full on Flavour Cheese Tasters. No wonder I haven't seen any Cheese Tasters in the shops recently; M&S want me to buy scorpions instead.

And what not? Because apart from the shape these two products are very similar. Cheesy aroma, cheesy taste, good crunch, that terrible way they gum themselves to the roof of your mouth if you aren't careful. What could be better?

There seem to be an enormous number of little children living around here and in a couple of weeks time they'll be dressing up as ghouls and knocking on our door. So I'd better get my act together and buy a load of treats. Cheesy scorpions won't be any good. I'm not handing out 60 or so 100g bags. Besides, if we had any left over we'd be forced to eat them and that would be no good for the diet.

Poisonous scorpions come in a pumpkin orange packet with a chocolate brown Halloween design. Bats, obviously, a haunted-looking house, winter trees and a raven (possibly a crow?) with a large scorpion held in his beak. Very handsome.

Of course, this is a limited edition crispy snack for Halloween. So grab them while you can.

Thanks to the Guardian Weekend Magazine this weekend for alerting me to the fact that scorpions come in all shapes and sizes: Deathstalker, Arizona bark, Fattail, Emperor, Brazilian yellow, and Asian forest. I think these are simply generic scorpions.

Walkers Cheesy Beans on Toast

And here we have a second choice from Walkers Do Us a Flavour range: Cheesy Beans on Toast. This flavour was created by Emma C from Gloucestershire and you can read about her here.

I think the reluctant taste testers at work and I, and the Chef, were all a little bit disappointed that this wasn't such a good crisp as the Chip Shop Chicken Curry flavour.

On first bite you get a lot of cheese (cheddar from Somerset apparently), and then you get a great big whack of tomato sauce. I'm not convinced you can taste any beans though. And the aftertaste isn't the best.

Suitable for vegetarians, as they should be, with no artificial colours or preservatives. And it doesn't seem as though there are any tomatoes in these crisps. So where does the tomato sauce flavour come from I wonder?

And what's going on with the packaging? Each crisp has a different colour bag but the design is always the same. So far, so that's what you normally get. But the design shows a tomato, basil leaves (I think), pepper corns, a red chilli, star anise and half a fig. Half a fig? Actually in rather small print it says "images are for illustrative purposes only" but really! Unless you read the small print you're definitely going to think these crisps are made with fig which does seem a little odd. Especially when you don't usually add fig to cheese on toast. Well, I wouldn't.

Not really terribly impressed. Sorry Emma C.

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!

Phileas Fogg Cheese & New York Deli Relish American Style Bubble Chips

I'm not attracted by the bright mustardy yellow packaging but the crisps themselves are very tasty. When I opened the packet I really wasn't sure so I sealed it up and came back to it a week later. And? You know what? These are really rather good.

I've not tried American style bubble chips before although increasingly I see them around, so I was interested to see what makes them different.

And what you get is an oblong crisp with bubbles in. The crunch is pretty good, the colour a bit more orange than your average crisp with a good bit of flavour dust some of it quite dark. I was disappointed that there was quite a lot of breakage; these crisps look robust but seem to be quite delicate and not as many as I would have liked survived the bus journey home from the supermarket.

Not at all sure what effect the twice cooking has. Make them more expensive?

And I'm not certain what sort of flavour Cheese and New York Deli Relish is. Is it a dip? Is it a thing you put on a burger to create a cheeseburger? Or a hot dog? Is it a... well I don't know. Well, anyway, it really has a good taste.

These crisps contain no artificial colours or flavours, and no MSG. Made with 100% sunflower oil. Suitable for vegetarians. And Phileas Fogg crispy snacks (obviously named for the hero of Around the World in 80 Days) are made by United Biscuits (UK) Limited.

It is a bit annoying that the ingredients list includes dried bell pepper. Why can't it say dried red pepper? As shown on the packaging. No-one in this country talks about bell peppers. I can only suppose that the brand is trying to make this UK crisp sound as if it is a US potato chip.

Waitrose Tangy & Spicy Cheese and Chili Mix

Waitrose Tangy & Spicy is a mix of chili salsa corn strips (the rectangular ones), nacho and jalapeno flavour mini tortilla chips (the triangular ones), nacho cheese flavour bread bites (the bits of toast), and cheese flavour snack biscuits (6 different shapes of miniature biscuits). And they're all rather small. In fact the cheesy biscuits are tiny which is a shame because they're rather tasty.

Most of the packet seems to be mini tortilla chips. These are OK. A little bit spicy but not too much, a little bit cheesy. And unfortunately in most cases, a little bit broken. And I couldn't tell which were meant to be nacho and which were meant to be jalapeno. The flavour was tasty but not very distinct.

The chili salsa corn strips are OK too. A little bit more spicy. But nothing special and I wasn't mad keen on them.

The nacho cheese flavour bread bites (essentially miniature bits of toast) are good. I'm not so sure about the nacho cheese flavour; again there seems to be a generally slightly spicy, maybe garlicky yumminess but I couldn't really pin point what the taste really was. They reminded me a bit of Phileas Fogg Mignons Morceaux. Can you still get them? I must investigate. Anyway, good enough to make me search through the packet for more of these. And there don't seem to be quite enough.

And then there are the teeny weeny little biscuits. Which taste great but are so small. I thought at first we had a heart, a diamond, a club... and looked in vain for a spade shape. Special biscuits for bridge perhaps? Apparently not. My theory about suits of playing cards was all wrong. So, we have a heart, a diamond, a trefoil (not a club at all), a triangle, an oval and a sort of oblong. All very tasty but all terribly teeny weeny. And again not quite enough of them.

This isn't a bad selection but there are far too many tortilla chips and not nearly enough of the bread bites (bread bites?? what kind of description is that?) and biscuits.

The bag was quite difficult to scan because it isn't the usual shape of crisp bag. It's not the flat package sealed at the back and then top and bottom, it's got a gussett. Or a sort of pleat at the sides. So that it's baggier than your usual bag. More like those brown bags that characters in US TV shows carry their lunch to work or school in. See Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 1 Episode 1. I don't remember Buffy ever even eating lunch in subsequent episodes much less bring in a packed lunch. Anyway, I cut the bag up wrong and then I couldn't get it to lie flat.

McVitie's Mini Cheddars

I bought several multi packs of mini Cheddars for Halloween. It's hard to resist a BOGOF and to be honest, the bags of mixed chocolate bars were very expensive - and not very full.

So in rapid succession I have tried Original, Cheese and Onion, and BBQ flavours.

Regular size Cheddars come in a packet like digestive biscuits or rich tea and are often broken at the edges or crumbled into bits. Mini Cheddars seem to be the same thickness (or thinness - why is it always thickness?) but because they are smaller in diameter they seem less prone to breakages. Not that a broken Cheddar tastes any better or worse than a whole one, but this way you get fewer crumbs. Better for eating in bed then, and that's got to be a plus.

The Original flavour mini Cheddars, oven baked, no artificial colours or flavours, and made with real cheese have the same taste as the big ones. The bite sized snack with the big cheese taste it says on the back. Actually it says this on all three flavours. But they aren't really that cheesy. In fact, I'm finding that with lots of allegedly cheesy snacks; they don't actually taste that much of cheese. It's a mystery.

Cheese and Onion flavour are really oniony. There's a good lot of cheese in the flavour too but the onion is the star. I liked these a lot but then wondered if I was breathing onion over everyone in the office all afternoon.

I think the cheese and onion combination here works a lot better than in many cheese and onion crisps which is interesting.

The BBQ flavour I tried with extreme caution because the last BBQ flavour snack I tried was just disgusting. In fact downright horrible. So I carried this little bag to and fro to work for over a week before I dared open it!

And impressively there didn't seem to be too many breakages. I think the mini size works well.

But these crunchy biscuity snacks have a delicate BBQ taste along with a good lump of cheese flavour. So quite nice. And Ruth liked the taste too. To my surprise I think I like these the best.


Quite a good combination of flavours for a multi pack. Not bad. But perhaps a little old fashioned.

ROKA Cheese Crispies

A very long time ago in the 1960s we had a yellow and blue tin with a picture of a cow on it. And the Roka biscuits lived in that tin. They were expensive - possibly because they came in a tin - so we didn't have them very often, and we called them Cow Biscuits. Because of the picture on the tin.

This is a very old memory but a real one; not prompted by photographs of very small me and my smaller brother eating crisps.

I don't know what happened to our original tin or tins but I found this on eBay. Amazing! Just how I remember it. I still need to attack it with wire wool  to get rid of the rust but I've got to say I'm pretty thrilled with my purchase.

But look at this: Roka Cheese Crispies are still made, and they haven't changed a bit. Oh, they make all sorts of fancy new versions but the basic Crispie is just the same as ever. Or is it a Crispy? Well, anyway, it's a small cheese biscuity thing. And they still make them!

 These are very delicate little biscuits, like cheese straws in a way, with a delicate cheesy taste. It's gouda cheese from Holland - which does have a delicate taste. Nothing shouty like mature cheddar. I guess they're made in the same way as puff pastry with lots and lots of very fine layers, and they break along the fault lines between the layers. You really need to take care when you bite because otherwise a chunk will drop off and then it's gone forever.

I have a very strict rule about not eating stuff that falls on the floor. I gather some people have a 5 second rule but for me if it falls on the floor I'm not eating it. And that would be a waste.

Cheese Crispies are so good but for some reason they are even better if you warm them slightly. I wouldn't put them in the oven, but maybe if you have an open fire put a little bowlful by the hearth and they'll taste even better after a couple of minutes. Yum.

So these Crispies come very very highly recommended although please don't expect a modern exciting taste. It's not about excitement. It's not about a big spicy taste. It's about a gentle grown-up cheesy biscuit that tastes very good with a glass of sherry or champagne.

They probably taste pretty good with anything although maybe not a cup of coffee.

You can still get Roka Cheese Crispies in a tin if you look hard enough. They usually come in a cardboard box, with the crispies in an airtight silver baggie. But as I write Lakeland are selling tins at £6.99 which is quite a lot for two packets of cheesy biscuits. But I guess if I got one of these tins now I wouldn't have to buy one off eBay in my old age. Something to consider perhaps. Maybe I could even sell it on eBay in my old age?

Brilliant.