Walkers Sensations Hickory Smoked Cheddar & Crispy Bacon

Ski Instructor told me that he and Farmer’s Daughter had poured over this blog the whole evening before the Chef and I went round for a drink and to admire their new garden. He claimed they wanted to be sure I had a fresh crisp to try. 

I am quite certain he completely made that up but in fact Farmer’s Daughter did manage to find a crisp we hadn’t seen before.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the actual crisps, and the crunch is just fine, but I am not too sure about the flavour. The cheesiness isn’t tip top; I am not certain that smoked cheese is the way to go with a flavour for crisps. And the crispy bacon? How can you create a crispy flavour? Well obviously you can’t.

Not nasty at all, just not particularly special.

The packet says “new” but we don’t know how long that label has been around.

Walkers Pops Melted Cheese & Crispy Bacon

New. Air popped. Full on taste. 50% less fat.

This little 23g packet (less than 1oz) is marketed as a low fat option for your crunch at lunch.

I'm really not sure about this crispy snack. The taste is a bit weird. Obviously I picked them up because I'd not tried them before but I was dubious I must confess. And I think I was right to be dubious.

The aroma doesn't inspire me at all. Basically it's completely fake bacon that wafts out of the packet. The taste is more cheesy (ish) but what would make it melted cheese I can't guess. And after you get past the orange flavour dust what do you get? A harder crunch than I was expecting, and a taste of Rice Crispies. A bit odd.

Sorry Walkers, I'm not impressed. And I'm not going to finish even this tiny packet.

Not wild about the brown and red packaging either. And I'm certain I've seen this particular little guy throwing his rubbish away responsibly before. What a shame these Pops don't get a new design.

Smiths Frazzles Crispy Bacon

Wow these are salty!

I love salt, I really do, but this maize-based crispy snack is the saltiest thing I have tried for a long long time.

What we have here is a crispy crunchy corn snack made to look like strips of streaky bacon. Except that the ones in the packet look a lot less like streaky bacon than the ones on the packet: there's a lot less pinky brown stripiness in real life (which in real life is beetroot red in places not pinky brown at all). But they do feature a pretty good bacon-style crinkle.

The packet tells me Frazzles have been around since 1975. And I don't imagine they have changed very much; they do have a 1970s feel about them. The bag is only 43g which has got to be a good thing. Even a massive fan of should not be eating very many of these at a time. Don't run away with the idea that I dislike them. But I wouldn't want a packet every day. Or every week really.

The Smiths brand is of course owned by Walkers (so the packet features a little guy throwing his rubbish away responsibly). Walkers are owned by Frito-Lay, who are in turn owned by PepsiCo Inc. There are a number of bacon-alike crispy snacks out there but I'm lead to believe that Frazzles are the original.

KP Wheat Crunchies Crispy Bacon

In the spirit of trying more bacony flavour crispy snacks I'm now trying these rather strange "wheaty tubes with a serious crunch". Or that's what it says on the packet. 

It's true. They do have a serious crunch. And supposing they really are made of wheat (and I don't see why not because it's on the ingredients list) they are wheaty tubes: 50mm or 2" long. So quite big. And you can see right through the tube.

The smell is... not so much crispy bacon as a fake crispy bacon crisp flavour. Perhaps that's not surprising as there doesn't appear to be any actual bacon involved. And the colour of course comes, as so often, from paprika.

It says here that Wheat Crunchies contain no artificial colours or flavours, and no MSG. I wonder how they've managed to make the taste so fake then?

It's a shame that this crispy snack is so greasy tasting. Not very nice and leaving a greasy feel in my mouth. The flavour dust tastes better on its own than on the snack. But it stays on your fingers for a long time. Even after a very thorough hand wash.

What a pity. This was part three of my crispy birthday present. Still, the first two packets I tried were very good so I won't feel too bad about saying: very sorry KP but I'm not going to finish the packet.