Zweifel Kezz Kessel-Chips Original Paprika

A very nice crisp from Swiss crisp giant Zweifel. Usually their crisps are fine cut with a gentle crunch. These are thick and crunchy (coupées de façon rustique) with the skin left on. 

The Swiss take on kettle cooking and do a pretty good job.

Jays Krunchers! Original

This is the final packet of original (or salt) flavour crisps sent by kind Missouri Taste Tester. And just as when I used to get a lot of books out of the library and I always enjoyed the first book the most, and the last book in the pile the least, so with these crisps.

Not nasty, not unpleasant at all, simply not as special as the sensational Cape Cod crisps the Chef and I tried first. Just a nice lightly salted crisp. Out of a big packet.

Interestingly, these crisps smell great in the packet. Some crisps taste great but smell quite nasty. I’ve never worked out how come. But the packet still smells rather good even though all the crisps have been eaten.

If you are looking for a kettle cooked chip that explodes with bold potato flavor and offers a krunchy texture, says the packet, try original Krunchers! Select, premium potatoes are sliced to the ideal thickness and sprinkled with the perfect amount of salt, resulting in a “wow” for your mouth. 

Say goodbye to wimpy chips and BITE into Krunchers!

You’ll probably enjoy them. The Chef did, I know. I’m fairly sure he ate most of these crisps when I wasn’t looking. 

Miss Vickie’s Sea Salt Kettle Cooked Potato Chips

Lightly sea salted, this crisp is a little bit thicker cut than some, but not too much. A very simple crisp. I ate the whole packet (only 38.9g) all at once. I tried to save some for the Chef, honest!, but accidentally ate the lot.

Made with love & care. And very nice too.

Some time ago we tried another Miss Vickie’s; sweet chilli and sour cream flavour, and quite enjoyed it.

Trader Joe’s Organic Kettle Style Potato Chips

Most unusually this packet of crisps sent by Instagram friend in her exciting parcel from Missouri (let’s call her Missouri Taste Tester), doesn’t have a flavour. In fact, if you read the back of the packet you can see they’re seasoned with just the right amount of sea salt. But it’s most unusual to find a crisp packet without the flavour front and centre.

To be extra kind, Missouri Taste Tester sent a Trader Joe’s brown paper bag too.  So here it is in the background. In fact I already have a Trader Joe’s bag, which is famed and hanging in our spare room. A form of recycling if you will.

I sent this packet of crisps to the office via my ex-colleague Noble Friend. Because of social distancing and the Rule of Six I can’t see most of the Reluctant Taste Testers IRL, but I value their opinions.The report is that these crisps have just the right crunch, and just the right amount of saltiness. So I think that’s a recommendation.

Zweifel Kezz Kessel-Chips Salt

Wow! What an amazing crisp this is.

Extra crunchy (as advertised on the packet), and with a very nice simple salty taste. I have seen ads on Swiss TV telling me this crisp merits 11/10 or even 12/10 on a scale of 1-10 (probably). The Chef, who has paid more attention than I have, is unable to tell me whether this score relates to taste or crunchiness, or both. It doesn’t matter. Searching for the ad online gave 4 results for Zweifel crisps followed by dozens of results showing Prince William enjoying a pint of cider and a plate of chips in his local pub. That’s French fries for North American readers but obviously in Norfolk where the Cambridges live they definitely call them chips. Possibly Prince William was demonstrating that it’s possible to visit a post-lockdown pub without getting completely smashed and beating up a police officer. But it’s a shame William is unlikely to taste this crisp any time soon. Maybe the next time he goes skiing though.

Kessel-chips are kettle cooked crisps which is usually crisp-speak for cooked in small batches, and often means a good crunch. In this case you get a very good crunch. Thicker cut than the regular Zweifel crisps and with the skin left on (de façon rustique), sans lactose, sans gluten and suitable for vegans. 

I knew this crisp would work well with a dip and we were lucky enough to find a very acceptable garlic and herb dip at a large branch of the Co-op. Yum yum. But honestly? This crisp is fab on its own. It’s a really authentic and delicious crisp. Definitely yum yum: very nice indeed.

And the Chef has already bought another packet.

So Chips la Fine Picarde Sel de Mer

OK, so here's a brand new (to us) brand of crisps from Picardie which is in northern France (so basically you can only buy them north of Reims) which I discovered at, you guessed, a motorway service station. Sadly I picked up a horrible throat bug in Switzerland (honestly, the first day, it looked as though I had developed mumps) so I wasn’t feeling much like shopping. Which was a shame as I only picked up one packet. Next time eh?

Délicieuses chips cuites au chaudron says the packet: kettle cooked to you and me. But definitely delicious.

This is a lovely old fashioned style of crisp. Fine cut, gentle flavour. Very nice. The Family Vegetarian, the Ski Instructor, the Chef, they all think this is a great crisp. Plus it works fabulously well with our favourite sour cream and chive dip. What could be better?

There are another couple of flavours, but I usually prefer the simple ones. If I see another packet we'll find out how they work.

Vico Kettle Cooked Gaufrette Chips Sel de Mer

After much trial and error, considerable taste testing and a lot of thought, I have definitely decided that I prefer crispy snacks that don’t taste of very much. As in this example simply flavoured with sel de mer: sea salt.

The reluctant taste testers and I have tried lattice design crisps before. We tried Seabrook Sea Salt flavour and liked them very much. We tried other Seabrook flavours and liked them but not so much.

And now we have a similarly delicious lattice crisp from French snack company Vico (an Intersnack subsidiary). I really thought we must have tried them before because they’ve been around since 2017, but apparently not.

A good bite, a light salty flavour, and I do like the lattice design. What could be nicer? And they do work well with a dip.

Apparently the 120g packet contains 4 servings. Well, the Chef and I have very nearly polished off 2 whole packets between us. Perhaps we’re just greedy.

This really is a great crisp. Highly recommended.

Lieber's Kettle Cooked Potato Chips Barbecue Flavour

Noble Friend went out to buy a pint or two of milk and brought back a little packet of kosher crisps, indeed I see they are kosher for passover. And they smell wonderful.

Sometimes a crispy snack will smell good and taste bad (or not so good), or smell awful but taste wonderful. But in this case I think the aroma that wafts from the packet is just lovely, and the taste isn't too bad. Which is praise indeed from me because I don't usually enjoy barbecue as a flavour. If the taste was the same as the flavour I'd give 5 stars but sadly it doesn't ever seem to work like that.

Slightly Red Haired Bristolian tells me she's not that impressed. Not enough taste she says, the taste is almost plain salted. Not what taste tester from the New Forest thought. She asked where they came from so she could buy another packet.

Noble Friend was quite pleased with her choice too. Very nice we thought.

I think these crisps are made in the USA but it's not easy to tell from the packet. "Distributed" it says, in the USA, in England, and in Australia. But the Rabbi in charge comes from Monsey which seems to be in New York State. I found that on a website called Walk2Shul. Useful.

Vico Chips Kettle Cooked Gout Creme Oignon

Ah, look. A packet of crisps that can't help itself from blowing up like a balloon if it gets a little bit warm. Which means we try to eat them out here rather than cart a balloon of crisps back to London. 

But first, here's one of our favourite sculptures at the Fonadation Giannada in Martigny. Very sheepy sheep don't you think?

And an extra special place because they encourage you to walk on the grass. Most unusual. The Fondation puts on two big exhibitions each year (we went to see the Picasso) and has a large collection of sculptures; some in the gardens and some set on the roundabouts in and around Martigny. Which makes Martigny a great place to visit. There are Roman remains too if you are interested, including a little amphitheatre. Oh, and if you have children or are mad for dogs there is also the Fondation Barry; an exhibition devoted to the heroic exploits of St Bernard dogs in the Alps (named after the first and very famous rescue dog). Sometimes they have puppies I'm told.

Anyway, what about the crisps themselves? Not bad. A very nice rich golden colour but a slightly hard crunch I thought. Well, the packet does say tres croustillantes.  And to be quite honest I am not mad about the cream and onion combination as a flavour for a potato crisp. I cannot explain why: it's just this flavour doesn't really do it for me. 

Could it be that this is in fact not cream and onion, but cream and spring onion? Quite a different taste. Although packet shows spring onions the list of ingredients just says powdered onion. So who knows?

However, the Chef really rather likes these crisps. In fact he ate about half this 20g packet all by himself. And all of his own accord. I didn't make him. Honest.

Deep River Snacks New York Spicy Dill Pickle

Spicy Dill Pickle? Very very spicy indeed. And yes, I know the packet says spicy but I'm not sure I was expecting quite such spiciness.

This is the last but one packet of crisps that lovely Friend from Buffalo brought from the United States. So having been scrunched up in her suitcase the crisps are a bit broken up. But I notice that the Deep River Snacks bag coped with the pressure in the baggage hold a lot better than the Lay's bags. It's definitely quite sturdy as crisp bags go.

These crisps are all natural, certified gluten free, kosher, with non-GMO potatoes and sunflower oil, no preservatives, no MSG, no trans fat and cholesterol free. And free of peanuts and tree nuts. Wow! Is there anything in this crispy snack? Well, yes; there's a whole lot of taste.

These are quite crunchy little crisps, rather a dark yellow with lots of flavour dust and scattered with teeny tiny snippets of (probably) dill. The flavour is made up of "extractives" of dill weed (not a word I have come across before), onion, garlic and vinegar, and of course the usual suspects: spices and natural flavour. I sometimes wonder why the crisp companies bother to give us any ingredients at all when what they so often tell us is "natural flavour".

Deep River Snacks seem to be very committed to helping a wide variety of charities, each associated with a different flavour of crisp: my packet tells me about the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and their Light the Night Walk (in North America). Rosemary & Olive Oil flavour (which I rather fancy) encourages you to support Autism Speaks which is a charity I like the sound of. Peach Habanero Tortilla Chips are also associated with this charity. A combination of peaches and chillis I think? And potatoes of course.

The crispy crunch is a little hard but I'm feeling a little fragile today (glands or something) so probably I wouldn't normally complain about that. The thing that bothers me a bit is that the dill pickle taste (which I love) is almost obscured by the amazing spiciness.

But it's a very different packet of crisps from the norm and doesn't seem to be trying to copy anything else I have tried. And it looks like a nice company with carefully considered values. So I'm pleased to have tried this product.