Salty Dog Sea Salt

At last another chance to try a crisp from niche UK crisp company Salty Dog. I say niche because I have only ever seen their crisps for sale at Luton airport (which I have not passed through since August 2014) although it could be they are sold all over the place - just not in North London, or France or Switzerland where I do most of my crisp shopping.

Here we have the basic flavour: sea salt.

And? These are really good. A lovely texture with the skin left on for good looks and added taste, great crunch and just the right amount of saltiness. And a wonderfully old-fashioned - make that retro - taste of fried potatoes.

So many brands are keen to point out that their crisps are baked not fried for a healthier crisp. I'm sure I've said it before but I'm going to say it again; the secret to a healthy lifestyle isn't to eat baked potato crisps rather than fried but not to eat crisps at all. Too much salt, too much fat, and in many cases far too much sugar do not a healthy snack make.

However, some of us just love crisps. So the answer is not to eat too many. And luckily for us Salty Dog have put their crisps in a sensibly small 40g packet. But still, I'm going to share with the Chef to make sure I don't overdose on the first day of my holiday. Because (oh dear) I managed to buy 6 packets of crisps at Luton airport and another on the plane!

I'm not sure these crisps quite reach the summit of fabulousness but they certainly get way past base camp and some distance up the mountain. And I do love the little dog on the packet.

Update: I discovered yesterday (7 July 2022) that you can buy Salty Dog crisps on La Suisse, a Belle Époque paddle steamer, on Lake Geneva. Which probably means you can get them on other boats in the CGN fleet. Still a very tasty crisp.

Originally published on 12 March 2015.

Chio Oven Jumpys Sea Salt

 

I was quite excited to see another flavour for the fabulous Jumpys. 

Of course the Chef and I first discovered Jumpys in 2013 (so long ago!) and I thought the taste a bit dull. After years of testing: just me and the Chef, or with the Reluctant Taste Testers, I have discovered that the simple flavours work the best. For me anyway, and I think for a lot of other people too.

So what we first tried were a Sunny Paprika flavour (although I have never worked out what makes it sunny), and I think the little kangaroos were fried. Look how picky I was back then! Goodness me. I had no idea at all. Because actually the Sunny Paprika Jumpys are fabulous, not to mention pretty cute (I wonder who ever had the idea for a miniature crunchy kangaroo?), and these oven cooked Sea Salt flavoured Jumpys are much less nice. Oh don’t get me wrong; I did finish the packet but I feel these little kangaroo shaped snacks weren’t as tasty as they might have been.

The crunch is still the same but somehow the sea salt flavour isn’t quite interesting enough. Yes oven cooked with 40% less fat is probably a healthier option, but there’s very little point in healthy if it isn’t tasty. 

Yes. There is little point in a crispy snack if it isn’t tasty. But a healthy crispy kangaroo is more intriguing than fried slices of potatoes. Well m there you are.

Found in Switzerland.

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.

Copper Kettle Chips Sea Salt

 If you were reading my posts in early May you might remember I had been promised a packet of New Zealand crisps by the Chef’s Skiing Friend but they had been held up by the Spanish lockdown. Well, here they are!

Unfortunately this little packet of plain sea salted crisps went out of date at the end of April but the Chef and I thought they were pretty tasty anyway, and the crunch was still surprisingly good. Also they tasted good with a sour cream and chive dip, and without. Always a good test.

Copper Kettle Chips is a brand owned by New Zealand crisp company Bluebird Foods, which in turn is, of course, owned by the mega marketing monster that is PepsiCo. The potatoes for these crisps seem to have been grown in Pukekohe (one of New Zealand’s major spud growing areas), and processed by Vince’s Team. It’s hard to tell from the information on the packet whether Vince and his team harvested the potatoes or slow cooked [them] in small batches... to create the ultimate flavour and crunch.

Rather a small packet, only 40g, but obviously easier to post than anything larger, so we accidentally ate all these crisps before I got around to photographing them. But rest assured they look just like any other crisps you may have tried.

By the way, while researching this crisp, I learned that  2008 was The International Year of the Potato.

H.W. Lay Sea Salt

I had a terrible problem with this little 40g bag of crisps. I couldn’t stop eating them. I kept thinking that I really ought to say some for the Chef so that I could ask his opinion. And I just kept eating. Normally you will find me complaining that most packets of crisps are far too large. I mean, look at those grab bags you're meant to share with your friends. You know you're going to eat the whole lot yourself. It's not healthy. However, in this particular case, I wished I had a bigger bag.

If I find any more I will certainly buy them; but I'm pretty sure this packet came from (you guessed) a French motorway service station. And I'm not at all sure I can remember which one. Fingers crossed we can find them again because the Chef was pleased to approve the meagre 4 crisps I left for him. He was quite gracious about how greedy I'd been.

Thicker than the usual potato crisps from Lays, made with premium quality potatoes, slower cooked, and with a beautifully simple Sea Salt flavour, this is a really great crisp. I highly recommend it. Delicious.

The packet photo has come out a bit dull. Look for something a richer sky blue.

Scrubby’s Sea Salt Lentil Chips

This is the second packet of lentil chips provided by Tall Elegant taste tester. Sea salt flavour.

I’m sure you remember that I usually enjoy plain tasting crispy snacks. Not in this case. I thought them rather dull. I don’t know, something just wasn’t right with the taste. Noble Friend enjoyed them more than I did I think, but she suggested they might be the better for a bowl of dip. I agree with that.

And then we move on to Managerial taste tester, who as I said the other day, scarcely ever tries the crispy snacks let alone comments. He came right out and admitted to enjoying these lentil chips very much. I’m delighted he liked them so much. Jam Maker taste tester was a big fan too.

It just goes to show that you can’t please all of the people all of the time.

But I do think that if you start by liking these lentil chips only a little, then a good dip would improve them quite a lot. And the shape is ideal for dipping and scooping.

Scrubby’s make lentil chips as we know. They also make hummus and quinoa chips, and root vegetable crisps. I gather they can all be bought at Waitrose. Sadly not at my local branch but somewhere out there just waiting to be discovered.

Taylors Welsh Potato Crisps Sea Salt

I haven't really enjoyed many of the six flavours of Taylors Welsh potato crisps. For some reason the flavours didn't appeal to me and the texture was all wrong. It has been very disappointing.

But this sea salt flavour was pretty good. Funny how often my favourites turn out to be the simple flavours. I can't think that the texture of this packet of crisps can be any different to the texture of the other flavours (because I'm sure they must all be made the same way), but it seems to be more to my taste.

Very odd. It really doesn't make any sense. Let's just accept that I thought these plain seat flavour crisps quite good. And I think the reluctant taste testers were of the same opinion.

Corkers Simply Sea Salt in a box

When flying home from Geneva to London the Chef and I discovered this interesting box of crisps on  the list of snacks offered by Easyjet.

 I was pretty sure we had tried a Corkers crisp before and I was right: it was a sausage and mustard flavour we bought at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.  And those crisps came in a normal style of packet. I checked the Corkers Crisps website and it seems that normally their crisps do come in a regular packet as before, so maybe the box is just for planes.

This is actually a pretty good salted crisp and the Chef and I wolfed them down quite quickly.

And this is a better recommendation than it sounds, because your sense of taste is less good than usual at altitude. So if you think it tastes good at 30,000 feet, then it really does.

The packet tells me that Corkers Crisps hold the Guinness World Record for biggest ever packet of crisps and have sent a packet into space! I hardly know what to say to that. They also claim that people prefer to snack on crisps while watching television rather than chocolate. Hmmmn I think the Chef would have something to say about that.

On top of everything, they have a nice little guy throwing his rubbish away responsibly.

Pret a Manger Maldon Sea Salt

Here's a packet of crisps that was bought at Luton Airport for a snack on the flight to Switzerland but not eaten and brought home again to London.

So we thought we had better eat them before they took to the road again.

A small packet of basic sea salted crisps. Good crunch, and a pale golden colour. We thought these were more lightly salted than salted but they were tasty. And they all got eaten - quite quickly.

Pleasant but not amazing.

The clever packaging design is simple but tells you everything you need to know.

The reluctant taste testers have got a bit fed up recently about the complicated flavour of so many modern crisps. So when Noble Friend was out and about the other day she picked up this packet of crisps from Pret à Manger. Which is why I am reposting this.

Malden Sea Salt. I love the taste of salt (I know, I know; we know it's a bad thing these days but hey! I was brought up in the 1960s sp give me a break) but Maldon salt is the tastiest. THE best salt. It comes from Essex and they have been collecting salt since 1882 (before my grandfather was born) and it really is fabulous. If you can find it give it a try. And although these crisps are not labelled "lightly" salted, it does seem that the taste is just right. Not too salty.

Well, the Chef and I had tried these crisps back in March 2015 and quite enjoyed them, but the reluctant taste testers had not. And? It's a lovely crisp, a little thicker than your basic crisp, and a beautiful taste of hand cooked potato with a fabulous lightly salted taste.

What could be better than that?

Once again we ask ourselves, are complicated crisp flavours what we are all looking for? Architectural taste tester, the most discerning of testers, thinks plain in best. Lots of the other taste testers think so too. So probably not. And this flavour? Lovely. Simple and tasty.

OK then. Come on crisp manufacturers, listen to the taste testers we all like the simple flavours best (the crisp makers won't read this - probably).

Scott Farms Orange, Purple & White Sweet Potato Chips

Tall Elegant taste tester visited the health food store and came back with this 100g packet of extremely handsome sweet potato crisps. And by extremely handsome I mean very pretty.

It's strange how a vegetable called a potato is not a potato. And sometimes it's called a yam... but this is a different vegetable in the South Pacific and New Zealand. Which is why you should never rely on "common names" but go straight to the Latin if you can. So your actual potato is a member of the Nightshade family Solanaceae along with tomatoes, and the Sweet Potato is a member of the Convolvulaceae like the morning glory flower, or bindweed. And hey! word fans, the word for potato comes from the Quechua (spoken in Peru) which a friend of mine speaks. Along with French, English, Spanish and very likely German.

Anyway, sweet potato crisps tend to have quite a dull crunch compared to potato crisps. but they certainly are attractive when you get three different colours in the same packet.

Nicely salted too. And a pretty packet. Spot the convolvulus flower?

Scott Farms products are made in North Carolina and imported by Scott Farms International based on the wonderfully named Asparagus Way in Evesham. Evesham is the heart of UK asparagus growing industry but it's still a wonderful name for a road.

Jones o Gymru Halen Môn PDO Sea Salt

Noble Friend went to Anglesey for the weekend and in the local Italian deli (where else?) she found these fabulous Welsh crisps. From Wales. And indeed, in Welsh.

What a lovely aroma of old fashioned properly hand cooked (hand fried) crisp. What a great flavour of oil and salt. And a great crunch. Simply delicious.

What a great crisp. Well done Noble Friend for bringing back a fabulous crispy snack to the reluctant taste testers of North London.

Halen Môn Sea Salt is harvested from the sea waters around the Isle of Anglesey. PDO means Protected Designation of Origin. In other words, you can't use this name for just any old sea salt. It has to come from Anglesey.

In Wales we are famous for our castles, choirs, beautiful natural landscapes and...yes... more than fair share of Atlantic rain says the packaging. Okay, so we might have to don our raincoats quite often, but it also means that we can grow world class potatoes. And you can read all this in Welsh if you want.

Tyrrell's Furrows Sea Salted

Tyrrell's have produced an amazing crinkle cut crisp with the deepest crinkles I ever saw.

Lovely old-fashioned aroma of properly fried crisp, great crunch, super deep crinkles, and a nice lightly sea salted taste.

Amazing.

I don't know what else to say. This is a pretty good crisp. And in keeping with the Tyrrell's tradition; the packaging design is as bonkers as ever. Aren't those ploughing camels great?

The reluctant taste testers reckoned that Tyrrell's are right, and this crisp would would very well with a dip. Maybe hummus, maybe something else. But we ate them all before we could try.

Kent Crisps Sea Salt

Found on the cross channel ferry once again, this Sea Salt flavour from Kent Crisps is pretty good.

Not super exciting, not fancy in its flavour, not particularly fabulous or different in any way. But tasty. Big crisps with a nice salty taste. And a good crunch.

No, not exciting. But pretty good.

The people on the ferry assured me I could buy these crisps in my local supermarket. But I can't. Not in North London I can't. Which is a shame. But there you are.

As ever with Kent Crisps the packaging is rather a nice design.

Fiddler's Lancashire Crisps Sea Salt

This is a sensational crisp.

A very plain sea salt flavour, a fabulous crispy crunch and a great golden colour. Brilliant.

I can't always find Lancashire crisps (probably because I don't live anywhere near Lancashire) but these were on sale in one of the cafés at Tate Modern.

The Chef & I were at Tate Modern to see the Alexander Calder exhibition and although we didn't stop for a drink or a snack my spider senses spotted some crisps on sale. Of course they did. What a shame we didn't buy more than one packet.

Tate Modern isn't difficult to get to but it does seem a bit odd to travel to South London in search of a favourite crisp... what am I saying? We frequently travel to Switzerland on just such a search. But it would be good to find a source slightly closer to home.

Thanks very much to Robert for cooking this lovely crisp for us.

Sensible Portions Garden Veggie Chips Sea Salt

We already tried Sensible Portions Garden Veggie Straws and liked them quite a lot. So I thought we should try the chips as well.

How small they are! And to my surprise not crinkle cut crisps (chips) at all but an extruded potato flour crispy snack. I suppose you can't very easily add beetroot or spinach colour to a potato crisp, but you can add it to the potato flour and starch paste. I guess it's a similar recipe to what they use for the straws but made into a crinkle cut chip shape.

Quite nice but not terribly exciting. That's what I said to History Graduate taste tester as we paused by the bowl of chips, and he agreed with me.

It's a shame that the beetroot, tomato, and spinach don't seem to add anything to the taste. You might expect chips with different colours to taste differently. But I don't think they do. And I think the flavour should be Lightly Salted rather than Sea Salt. Oh wait, the packet says these chips are delicately seasoned.

The combination of garden grown potatoes, ripe vegetables and 30% less fat then the leading potato chip provides a better-for-you snack says the packet. And These airy, light and crunchy chips allow for 38 chips per serving! 

No GMO, 0g trans fat, no artificial colours, flavourings or preservatives, 0g cholesterol, vegan, certified kosher and you can recycle the bag!

Not half bad for a healthier style of crispy snack but I do wish the different colours had a different taste. A missed opportunity I think.

The London Crisp Co. Sea Salt Hand Cooked Crisps

Here's an interesting little packet of crisps. Soho inspired Sea Salt it says on the back of the packet. Aside from some alliteration I can't quite think why Soho (in the centre of London) should inspire sea salt but who cares. The Chef & I try to go to Soho once a year when Stacey Kent sings at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club. But we've never had crisps there.

It also says hand cooked in the centre of London....hmmn. In fact, hand cooked in NW10. Not so very central. But let's not be over picky.

These crisps were created to be eaten in your local with a pint of beer. Sorry, make that enjoyed in London's brilliant boozers. I suppose I do have a local pub but I almost never go there, and if I did I shouldn't drink beer. But that's another story.

Nice little crisps with the skin left on. Quite a hard crunch, these crisps are thicker than some. Not a bad colour and a nice traditional sea salty taste.

Pretty good.

The packaging is fun isn't it?

The London Crisp Co crisps are made by Kolak.

REAL Crisps Hand Cooked Sea Salt

This little packet of crisps appeared in my filing tray when I was away from work. Off sick, on holiday; I don't know because I wasn't there. And I also don't know what generous crisp fairy made the donation. But I greedily ate them all on my own.

Now, I've tried crisps from the Real Crisp Company before. I found them - no! not at a motorway service station in France - no, I found them at Geneva airport. Real Sea Salt & Black Pepper crisps were pretty good as I remember. And these Sea Salt crisps were pretty good too.

Meet Jake, says the packaging, a 'real' life salty sea dog. his father's ship. Born aboard his father's ship amid thick fog at high tide, he's never even touched dry land. He knows his granny from his sheepshank. This teller of tall tales is 108 years old but the salty sea air and mermaid kisses grant him his youthful appearance. It seems Jake is the character depicted on the front of the packet. Hmmnnn....

Pretty good plain salty crisps with the skin left on and a slightly harder crunch than the norm. I had no trouble finishing this 35g packet for my crunch at lunch. Very tasty.

I'm sure my last packet told me it was made by the Real Crisp Company in Wales. This packet says it is made by REAL Crisps Ltd in Northamptonshire. The company is owned (I think) by Tayto who are the big crisp company in Ireland. Things are always changing in the crisp market but... And it seems that quite half the links I clicked on to find out more don't work. So I'm not quite sure what to believe.

But they are quite tasty crisps.

Keogh’s Irish Atlantic Sea Salt

Senior Taste Tester has just been to Dublin (for anyone struggling with geography, that's the capital of Ireland) where he tried and approved this packet of crisps. I didn't get to try the crisps (the packet was very empty) but the ex-contents of this packet smell pretty fabulous.

The Atlantic Sea Salt is handcrafted on the Beara Peninsular in West Cork by the O'Neill family. Pristine Oceanic Waters produce a pure Sea Salt Flake full of natural flavour says the packet.

And don't forget to activate Spud Nav™. Track your crisps back to the field they came from, just type the field name the tracker page of our website! Er... but I can't find the field name on the packet.

I can find the potato variety - Hermes - and they were cooked by Zintra, but call me dim - I can't find the field name. Nope. I looked on the website www.keoghs.ie and my field name is missing. Sigh. I wanted to follow that up.

The reluctant taste testers and I have previously tried Keogh's Atlantic Sea Salt & Irish Cider Vinegar, and Keogh's Shamrock & Sour Cream. I think I probably got both bags from the handy "foreign food" section at Tesco in Finchley Central.

But this is a bag of Irish crisps bought and eaten in Ireland. And the senior taste tester recommends these crisps.

Give them a try if you can find them. I'll be checking Tesco's shortly.

The 2121 packaging

Eat Real Hummus Chips Sea Salt Flavour

We seem to be having a super healthy week on the crispy snack front chez the reluctant taste testers.

This was a contribution from tall elegant taste tester. As an apology for something... I'm not quite sure what.

Anyway, these shell-shaped crispy snack are made with 45% chickpea flour so I guess they have a right to describe themselves as hummus chips. Gluten free (certified by Coeliac UK), vegetarian, vegan, 48% less fat than regular potato chips. Sounds pretty good doesn't it?

But, and you just know with me that there's going to be a but, I'm not sure these hummus shells taste of very much.

I'd like to say thy had a lovely crunch (it was a bit hard in my opinion) and a nice salty taste. But to be truthful I didn't think they tasted of much. The extremely sceptical taste tester liked them; she says she likes bland tasting crispy snacks.

Most of a 45g packet (I saved a few to take home to the Chef) got eaten up quite quickly. But. But yet another crispy snack that is meant to be a healthier option, and thus better for us than your average snack, turns out to be a bit dull. I thought there was a slightly greasy after taste and the tall elegant taste tester agreed with me.

I have a feeling that with this lovely shell-shape these hummus chips would work extremely well with a nice dip. But then I daresay they would be a lot less healthy for us.

Beanfields Bean & Rice Chips Sea Salt

OK, so I often wait for a bus just by a local deli and in the window I spotted these tortilla chips. But by the time I catch a bus the deli is already closed so I had to remember to go in at lunchtime. It took a while.

These tortilla chips are gluten free, all natural and GMO free (verified), corn free, suitable for vegans, oh, and parve. Free of the 8 most common food allergens. And they have an award winning taste says the packet.

Beanfields is a family run firm (the Glidden family) that believes beans are good for our families, good for our farmers, and good for the planet. And these chips contain black beans and navy beans. Plus long grain rice. And that's it. Apart from oil for cooking and some sea salt.

So basically Beanfields has put a lot of effort into creating what looks like a tortilla chip but contains no maize. And is probably a lot better for you than a normal tortilla chip.

And it's true that they do look super healthy. Taste pretty healthy too although I honestly can't put my finger on what they actually taste of. But they are quite nice for something so healthy. Good level of saltiness too. And although the reluctant taste testers didn't nosh these down super enthusiastically, they did eat quite a lot.

The woman in the deli told me she'd been in the food business most of her life and she was searching for products that would be healthier for her customers. I think she's found one.

Here's the Beanfields website.