Kambly ApériSticks Carotte Avec une touche de Chili

We visited Switzerland (thank you very much NHS Covid passport) and I wondered what this little packet of crispy sticks might taste like. 

A crispy snack made with carrots? Well, let’s see. There’s a good crunch, and the little crispy sticks seem much like any similar product… except for the lack of salt. Which is just seen (as fashion editors say) in the photo, but not immediately obvious on the product. The carrots do add an amazing whack of sweetness so not what you might expect in a crispy snack. Never underestimate a TV chef who tells you to add carrots for sweetness: it’s really true.

Quite a tasty snack, but a little too sweet for my taste. I prefer salt over sweet any day of the week. And they do ever so slightly gum themselves to your teeth which isn’t ideal. But perhaps I should have tried them with some hummus? I think that would work nicely.

Globus Tortilla Chips au Chili

When we were in Bern in the spring I picked up this packet of crisps from the Food Hall at the big department store Globus. It wasn't so much that I thought these tortilla chips would be fabulous, more that they were the only Swiss crisps on offer.

Only, they aren't Swiss at all. Globus, based in Zurich, have their tortilla chips made in The Netherlands.

So finally I have dredged these crisps out of my basket of goodies because it's about time we tried them. Don't worry. They aren't months past their sell by date so we won't die a horrible death. Or not on account of this crispy snack.

I am really very impressed at the chilli taste of these tortilla chips. You won't be surprised to learn that I'm not mad about chillies. But that doesn't stop me being impressed at this taste. It's absolutely right.

According to the Blogger search function, over the last 3 years or so we have tried 42 different crisps and crispy snacks featuring chilli. And this is the first to taste like a fresh chilli. Remarkable.

Aside from the remarkable taste this is an ordinary tortilla chip: triangular, orange and crunchy.  The Chef and I tried them with a selection of dips from Waitrose: onion & garlic, pecorino & basil, and sour cream & chive. All of them worked very well and I think we were pretty happy with our taste test.

The packaging is clear with a very small Globus label so I'm going to show the paper carrier bag we got from the Food Hall instead.

Blair's Death Rain Buffalo Wing Cauldron Cooked Potato Chips

Noble friend and I decided that these are crisps for blokes. Tall Taste Tester disagreed; he reckons these are crisps for gentlemen. But basically, it seemed that the gents in our office liked these crisps better than the ladies. And we're not really quite sure why.

Here we have another 1.5oz packet (43g) of the amazingly chillified crisps from Blair's Death Rain. Actually, according to the packet these crisps are only medium hot, but they seemed pretty hot to me.

However, while the chilli spiciness is great, the buffalo wing part of this crispy snack is not at all obvious. We really couldn't detect it.

And in case you didn't know (I'm sure you do - but just in case) buffalo wings are of course not the wings of buffaloes at all, but chicken wings. Which for some reason used always to come from Buffalo NY. Hence the name.

I really have no idea why anyone eats a chicken wing unless they don't have access to any other food. It's bone, skin, sinew and other unsavoury stuff. Where's the meat? I even have friends who like the wing best. Really? I guess it takes all sorts. But anyway, we couldn't detect any chicken here.

The packet doesn't say suitable for vegetarians so there may be chicken included but the best clue I can offer from the list of ingredients is natural flavour (several times).

The crisps got eaten very quickly.

Blair's Death Rain Ancho Chili Cheeseburger Cauldron Cooked Potato Chips

Wow! You weren't expecting a brand of crisps called Blair's Death Rain® were you? It sounds a little bit heavy metal and not what you were expecting from me.

Well, I have to tell you I was browsing the very dangerous Amazon.co.uk (you never know what you'll find yourself buying next...) and I came across these crisps from New Jersey. What to do? Obviously I had to order some and this is the first packet the reluctant taste testers and I tried.

Feel Alive! says the packet; and I think we kind of did.

These are Cauldron™Cooked Potato Chips containing no MSG and no trans fats. However, yes to kosher, and yes to heat and flavour. The creator, who signs himself Your ChiliPal is obviously mad about flavour and describes himself as a Passionate ChiliHead. He's determined that anyone who opens one of his bags of crisps is going to enjoy the contents. Open the bag already!!! Fun and passion await you!!!

Possibly too many exclamation marks going on here but I have to admit these crisps are rather fabulous. And there is a whole lot of taste.

Blair's American made spuds are the most flavorful and without question the hottest, most furious chips ever created on planet earth. So now you know.

Quite a hot chilli aroma from the packet; smallish, rather dark crisps, very nice crunch and a hand cooked look to the crisps; and a great taste. The more you eat, the hotter they get - even though these are only described as medium hot. And a fabulous taste of cheeseburger too.

Most of the reluctant taste testers liked these a lot although noble friend wasn't mad keen. I have to say they were a bit hot for my delicate taste buds (which obviously I have insured for a vast sum) but I still thought this a great crisp.

Check out Blair's Death Rain snacks and sauces here. They've got a heat meter and everything.

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?

Cofresh Chilli & Lemon Flavour Potato Grills

The nice newsagent at the bottom of our road sold me these crisps when I was adding credit to my Oystercard. They stock a slightly random selection of small bags of crisps and I never know what I will see next. But I really like that the packets are all small. This bag is 28g which turns out to be very slightly less than 1oz. A tiny amount of crisps so you don't feel too ghastly guilty about eating them all.

Really the way the supermarkets sell crisps does annoy me. Huge great big sharing bags or even huger multi packs of 6 or 8 or 10 bags of something. And what if you only want one small bag? Apparently they don't really care. And then we wonder why everyone is getting so fat.

So anyway, I'd not heard of Cofresh before but they appear to be based in Leicester (in the UK) and sell their products in the United States, Australia and New Zealand (from the nutritional facts / information printed on the bag), and France, Germany, Spain, and The Netherlands (from the languages the ingredients are printed in).  The oh so helpful internet tells me that Cofresh is the UK's leading Asian snack business. So good for them. And the Cofresh website tells me there are plenty of crispy snacks for me to try if I can find them.

I've called these crisps but I suppose it's more of a crispy snack. And weirdly they look like armadillos. Yes, all right, I expect it's only me but you know I can't help it.

Quite an unusual mixture of hard crunch and soft crunch - it depends on whether you're biting into a thick bit or not - with a delicate spicy taste. There's more flavour on some of the grills than on others, and you can see that some of them have a lot more orangey brown flavour dust than others. The smell is really nice and I think the label "Tangy" on the front of the packet is about right. I was pleased the spiciness was as mild as advertised and I really like these.

The packaging is pretty too. I like the yellow paisley pattern. Just going downstairs to check on the taste again... mmmn yes, very nice. Quite hot but not too hot and the lemon really works well. I'm enjoying these with a glass of Swiss wine.

Kolak Hot & Spicy Crisps Chilli & Lemon Flavour

So I went to the inefficient local post office to send a package of discarded Marcus Didius Falco books by Lindsey Davis (I had two of each) to my brother who reads them too, and suddenly noticed they have a limited supply of crisps on sale.

Maybe I'm really unobservant and it's only recently that I've noticed this - or maybe it's a new departure - but I find that quite a lot of local shops sell crisps on a shelf about knee high. It's not normally where I look but silly me. Evidently I've been missing out because look here; the post office sells crisps I've not seen before. And in small 28g bags too.

I don't know Kolak Snack Foods but they appear to be based in North West London, which as luck would have it, is where I live. Pretty much. Not terrifically impressed with their website which seems to be full of broken links, and at the same time under construction, but the crisps are OK.

The crisps are quite small, finer than average for these days and with a light crunch. And I was sorry to see that there was quite a lot of breakage but that doesn't affect the taste. The colour is a much darker orange than the photograph shows. That'll be the chilli powder and paprika. And the chilli and lemon flavour? Amazing.

I didn't finish the packet because these crisps really are very hot and spicy and I found them a little bit too spicy for my taste. But I tried them out on the reluctant taste testers at work and apart from the senior taste tester (founder member of the crisp club) everyone seemed to approve. Even the extremely picky tall taste tester gave them 10/10.

Lovely chilli flavour and lots of lemon too. Well done. Yes, we approve.

Llama's Sweet Chilli Whole Wheat Baked Bites

'Tis the season of the llama-shaped snack!

I was worried these would be like dog biscuits. Great big crunchy dog biscuits. But obviously I had to try a packet. Instead I find they are rather tasty little llama-shaped snacks. Yum. It's true, the smell is a little bit dog biscuit, but the taste is anything but. A mix of digestive biscuit (thinner but crunchier) with a hot chilli taste and a lot of sweetness. Each llama is very tiny and it's very easy to have another. And another. I'm quite surprised how much I like them. In the interests of scientific reporting I should say that Terry didn't seem to be mad keen. But I like them a lot.

Lucky thing I went to Tesco eh? I might be tempted to eat the whole packet....

From the smart red gussetted packaging:

• No llamas were harmed in the making of these snacks.
• One mammal's mission to rid the world of boring snacks.
• What is it with you British and your boring snacks? (asks the llama) Where I come from our nibbles have some kahunas! Big flavours, big crunch, big attitude.
• So hasta la vista 'ready salted', adios 'dry roasted', my delicious sweet chilli flavour baked bites are ready to rumble.
• Now that's what I'm talking about!
• Whole wheat oven-baked snack crackers so good I modelled them on me.
• Chomp-on, oh people of good taste.
• Get busy with the chilli!

Yes, OK, perhaps a little overkill on the cute llama-ness but never mind. I can cope and if you try these I expect you will too. However, these llamas are actually made in Canada for a British company based in Salford. Take a look at the website; the llama even writes a ridiculous blog. It's very silly. Read it here http://www.llamasnacks.com/blog.html

Llamas pictured in the little silver dish my Granny brought from Argentina

For other animal snacks read about kangaroo-shaped Jumpys here.