Arnott’s Shapes Originals Chicken Crimpy

Chicken Crimpy seems a weird choice of name for a flavour, but maybe in Australia or New Zealand it makes more sense than it does here in North London.

This crispy snack is more of a cracker or a sort of cheese biscuit than anything else. Definitely not a crisp or chip. It’s an interesting oval, unusual, with a pretty scalloped edge. And it sort of tastes of chicken stock cubes.

Stock cubes? Yes, sort of. And just like my stock cubes, these crunchy crackers are made with chicken powder. So definitely not suitable for vegetarians.

These biscuitty crackers are quite tasty. The crunch is a bit hard, but not too hard, and I rather enjoyed them. I wonder if they would work well with a smear of unsalted butter? Or maybe some hummus.

As you can see these crackers come in a cardboard box, and then there’s a silver baggie inside. I am not convinced you can see the flavour.

The Fine Cheese Company Lemon, Sea Salt and Extra Virgin Olive Oil Crackers

 

Yes, OK, I admit it. This product from The Fine Cheese Company in Bath is not really a crispy snack. As it says on the packaging, it’s a cracker. To go with your cream cheese or goats cheese or whatever else you fancy. But this is my blog and I like the packaging design.

I’m not sure you can tell that these crackers have been made with extra virgin olive oil, but you can definitely tell they’re made with lemons. Very lemony. A bit more lemony than I was expecting to be honest. Perhaps the extra virgin makes a difference. It’s hard to tell. Maybe it’s one of those ingredients that you notice if it’s not there. And of course everything needs salt.

These crackers are very thin but with a serious crunch, so they hold up better to buttering, or cheesing, than some much better known crackers. 

The only problem is that I don’t like them very much. And I don’t have any reluctant taste testers staying just now to offer a different opinion.

Carrefour Crackers Goût Pizza

Another, yet another apéritif snack found in France, this one fashioned into the semblance of a miniature pizza.

Once again it's not what I could call a cracker; it's more of a crispy snack if you ask me. But never mind how you describe it, it's pretty tasty. At first glance it's a bit really? but in fact the pizza-ness works rather well.

The reluctant taste testers and I were impressed and snacked enthusiastically.

Yum yum.

Carrefour Crackers

Weirdly this crispy snack is sold on the same shelf as the salted crackers, and the sesame or bacon or pizza flavour crackers, but it doesn't have a flavour. Or… not an advertised flavour.

And to be honest I only bought it because the crackers are shaped like lions and elephants, crocodiles and hippos, tortoises and um…. what is that that says "gloups!!" exactly? It's hard to say when half your animal is hidden behind important calorie information. And do you know of any animal that says "gloups"? Even in French?

There is a fish-shaped cracker but I'm not convinced fish say anything very much.

These are nice little crispy biscuits, very lightly salted. They don't taste of much but somehow are very appealing and you probably will end up having another. And very likely revert to childhood and bite the head off first. The lion cracker is particularly well designed for this activity!

Do you suppose these are anything like the animal crackers Shirley Temple sang about in her soup?

Carrefour Crackers Emmental

And yet another little crispy biscuit from the supermarket outside Reims. Really, the French appetite for little crispy snacks must be enormous! And don't you think they're a very odd shape? These little crispy snacks rather remind me of the London 2012 logo. OK, just me then.

Another deliciously lightly salted, lightly cheesy crispy crunchy cracker-type snack. Very nice. Some machine has gone to a lot of trouble to scatter grated emmental cheese over the top of these oddly shaped crackers and they are all the prettier for it. But not a whole lot cheesier.

However, this is rather a nice snack (one of so many available in France these days) and the reluctant taste testers and I enjoyed them.

You know, it's a lot more difficult to write interesting stuff about crispy snacks that are rather nice. They aren't horrible so you can't be scathing and mean. They aren't superb so you can't go into raptures. They're just... rather nice. Yes, I'd finish this little box of slightly cheesy snacks. So would most of the taste testers. Might be a little more exciting with a glass of wine but I wouldn't bet on it. 

Carrefour is a giant supermarket chain with branches all over France, possibly in Belgium? I've not been to Belgium (through it on the train in the middle of the night in 1979ish but I was asleep), and I'm sure there was a big branch on Mallorca. Anyway they seem to be working really hard on their crispy snacks. Good for them. Can't wait for my next visit!

Carrefour Crackers Gout Pizza

I must say that the reluctant taste testers and I really enjoyed this crispy snack, but we wouldn't call it a cracker. Crackers are flat aren't they? Crackers are for loading up with cheese or a dip. This is a tasty morsel of crunchy deliciousness but not a cracker.

But enough nitpicking about nomenclature. This is a very tasty crispy snack with a just-right crunch and a pretty good pizza taste. A little bit cheesy, quite a lot herby, the streusel style topping is very nice indeed. 

Along with all the reluctant taste testers I liked this snack from French supermarket Carrefour a lot. Delicious. 

Grate Britain All-British Cheddar Crackers

I found this little 45g packet of Cheddar Crackers made by Artisan Biscuits Ltd of Ashbourne in Derbyshire on my Easyjet flight home from Geneva.

I thought they looked a little bit fabulous made, as they are, with freshly grated Wookey Hole Cave-Aged Cheddar. So they should be good.

Only I have to report that this is a not very cheesy snack.  The cheesiness is very subtle. It's nice. But subtle. And you have to pay attention. 

Now, when you're at altitude (eg on an Easyjet flight from Geneva) the sensitivity of your taste buds to sweet and salty foods is reduced by up to 30%. So I wonder had I opened the packet on the plane, would I have felt slightly conned? I'm not sure this is the ideal snack for a plane journey.

I  brought the packet home to photograph and scan (obviously) so I'm taste testing in the privacy of my own kitchen. Which is perhaps 60 feet above sea level. Or is that 60 metres? I can never remember. Anyhow, no loss of sensitivity here. But you do have to pay attention to the cheesiness. 

However, I happen to have some guacamole in the fridge and I can report that these crackers work extremely well in combination with the guacamole. Delicious. And the slightly hard crunch works very well with a dip.

The packets says We freshly grate or crumble real cheese for every batch we make. We don't use cheese powder or cheese flavour, because it is not the British thing to do. Finally, we had bake our crackers for a home-made taste. Grate Britain - the perfect nibble for 'drinkie-poos'.

We also learn about the Cheese: it's Real English Cheddar, hand-made in the West Country by Ford Farm. Wrapped in cloth for long maturing. Aged in the caves at Wookey Hole, Somerset. Its mellow deep flavour captured to put the Grate into Gate Britain.

I love the French name for these crackers: Très "British" - Crackers au Cheddar. Brilliant.

Original Ritz Crackers

When I was little my Granny & Grandpa used to have Ritz Crackers at about 6 o'clock each evening with a very small whisky and soda. By today's standards they were extremely abstemious and somehow this evening ceremony seemed very special. A daily treat.

This is Winifred (sometimes known as Goff) and Hugh (always called Tommy) in the 1950s. Actually it might be my parents' wedding.

Anyway, here we have the basic Ritz biscuit. It seems to taste exactly the same as ever it did. I wonder if the recipe is the same? Quite salty. But quite sweet at the same time. A gentle flavour; not exciting.

Oven baked not fried it says on the box. Maybe. But is it probable that this little biscuit was ever fried? That doesn't seem terribly likely does it? And not terribly impressed that these little biscuits are made with palm oil. But perhaps they always were.

Nice to try for a change. But I think they'd be tastier with cream cheese and something or maybe some pâté.

ROKA Cracker Snack

Cracker Snacks & Dip

Another little box of crispy snacks sent to me by the lovely people at ROKA in the Netherlands.

Oh dear. I feel really mean but we weren't awfully impressed.

Cracker Snacks are small square biscuits or crackers made with linseed, sesame seed, sunflower seed and oat flakes. According to the packaging there is 18% Gouda cheese in the mix too. You can see the cheese on the top, but you don't get a lot of cheesy taste - except there is a pretty good cheesy aftertaste.

These little crackers are not at all nasty. Let's get that absolutely straight. But they don't seem terribly exciting either. I must admit that I didn't try them in all the ways suggested by the packaging: to accompany my soup! (no), with pre-dinner drinks! (no), for decorating with my favourite toppings (no), as a tasty bite! (yes), for barbeques & picnics (no), and for snacking and dipping (yes - yes, I tried that). Yes, we tried snacking with a dip.

And what I got, what the reluctant taste testers at work got, was an overwhelming sensation of healthiness. These crispy crackers have quite a hard crunch and they do taste awfully healthy. I expect it's all the seeds.

I read, for example, that linseeds may help with heart disease, arthritis, PMS, and feeling calmer in times of stress. And if I'm not mistaken I remember a long ago plot from The Archers (for non UK readers it's a very long-running BBC Radio 4 soap: an everyday story of farming folk) where a character suffering terrible menopausal symptoms baked herself a cake full of linseeds and other healthy stuff, but half of the cake was eaten (ha ha ha!) by a greedy and dreadful old man called Joe Grundy (ho ho ho!) and wasn't he upset when he discovered what he'd eaten?

Well, well, perhaps these would be more fun if I'd spread hummus on them, or slices of cheese or I don't know what. I did provide a dip for the reluctant taste testers but although it helped, we were still left with that sensation of healthiness. And I'm sorry to say they are not (as advertised on the packet) irresistible.