Lay’s Tomato flavoured

And… here we are again. This time with a tomato flavoured crisp from Lay’s which I think started life in Poland. It seems likely that this product was not originally intended to be sold in the UK, but I bought the packet in my local Turkish shop here in North London. According to the lists of ingredients, you should be able to find these crisps in PL, HU, CZ, SK, LT, LV, EE, HR and SI. 

The packaging of all sorts of products, from potato crisps to shampoo, is an interesting way to learn foreign languages. In this case though, there is no list of ingredients in any language that I actually speak. Sadly I have no knowledge of Hungarian or Lithuanian. Or even Polish. How careless of me. So the information on this packet isn’t going to act as a Rosetta Stone for me today. It’s a pity because I find the differences (and similarities) between languages fascinating.

However, the front of this packet is prominently labelled in English, so that’s a fairly big clue.

OK, so this is a tomato flavoured potato crisp. The crisps are finely cut, maybe that’s the Polish preference? And they do taste fairly tomatoey.

But once again, I have here a crisp which is perfectly edible, but to me at least, tastes far too sharp to accurately give us crisp fans a genuine taste of the advertised flavour.

Not bad. But… No, I mean, it’s not a bad crisp but I think tomato is a surprisingly difficult flavour to get right.

Lotto Monsters Tomato Flavoured Snack

This packet promised so much. Monster shaped snacks (albeit a very odd shaped monster), and a tomato flavour which can sometimes be very tasty.

Lotto is a brand owned by Best Foods. Which is based in Bucharest and Sofia. So that's Romania and Bulgaria. And guess what? You can buy this this crispy snack in North London. Well, you won't be surprised to learn you can buy pretty much anything in North London.

Very sadly the reluctant taste testers and I were not very taken with this crispy snack.

The texture wasn't right. And the flavour... was far too sharp.  Not very tomatoey and not to our taste. You can see the tomato flavour strewn across the monsters in the picture below. But it's not our idea of tomato.

If the reluctant taste testers and I had been Romanian or Bulgarian we might be big fans. But since we are British or Irish we aren't.

Sorry guys.

Sainsbury's Rudolph's Noses Tomato Flavour Snacks

I don't usually shop at Sainsbury's because most of the time there isn't one handily on my way from here to there. But there is one very nearly next door to our lovely local undertakers. So after my meeting there I rushed into Sainsbury's to see what I could see.

Not a vast selection of crispy snacks I have to say. But what about these Rudolph's Noses?

Well, tomato is a difficult flavour. For some reason (and I report from personal experience) tomato flavour snacks don't usually taste of tomato. They taste of tomato soup. Or tomato ketchup.

The tall taste tester rather unkindly suggested these little (but considerably larger than I was expecting) red balls taste of cuppasoup; history graduate thought budget tomato ketchup. I'm going to be a bit kinder and suggest Heinz tomato soup. They have the same creamy aftertaste.

Despite these comments the reluctant taste testers had little trouble noshing down a bowlful of... er... noses.

And I must point out these are the most luminous red crispy snack I ever saw. Really quite impressive considering the colouring is all natural. Rudolph's Noses probably could light the way for Father Christmas and his reindeer in Christmas Eve. Equally impressive though, the red colour does not stain your hands.

And I do like the jolly packaging. Great fun.

7Days Bake Rolls Tomato Olive & Oregano

So here we have the third packet of Bake Rolls bought by the tall taste tester from his local corner shop (which used to sell fish and reptiles). This was kind of him because he is currently on sabbatical and not able to take part in the taste testing.

And I can report that the reluctant taste testers loved this crispy snack. We (all of us that I talked to) just loved it. Very tasty. And the bowlful didn't last very long. So those who said they would try one at the end of the day were disappointed.

The tomato (as so often) isn't so much a taste of tomato but more a tomato sauce or soup or something, but the addition of the olive gives a wonderful hit of umami. I am sure there is oregano in there somewhere but it doesn't leap out and grab you.

The combination of these flavours is extremely good. And together with the fabulous crunch of the Bake Roll you get a great crispy snack.

Yes, we have a success.

The senior taste tester liked them so much he is planning a raid on the ex-fish and reptile shop to stock up on this crispy snack. And possibly check to see if there is another flavour to try...

And here we have a few more photographs of rhododendrons. Because they looked so wonderful and I took a lot of pictures.

Vico Dixi

At least, I think this crispy snack is called Vico Dixi. Either, or both, is/are a French brand from euro snack giant Intersnack and both are listed as brands on Intersnack.fr. And Vico seems to be the second (second to what I have not discovered) brand in the French snacking market.

Whatever... here we have a fluffy little ball of maize and peanut (un boule de maïs soufflé croustillante) flavoured with tomato. Each little ball is about the size of my thumbnail if that big, so not very large, and they are rather more-ish. Quite light, a little dry in the mouth but not off-puttingly so, really rather peanutty, and with a delicious tomato taste. And a rich tomato colour. The packet says the taste is un gout tomate intense et irristibles; and that's about right.

The packet also says that Vico is the king of aperitif  - by which I suppose it means the king of snacks to go with your gin and tonic, or glass of sherry. Or in my case today, a glass of white Swiss wine. Johannisberg since you asked.

Made without preservatives or colouring, and I imagine from the list of ingredients that they are suitable for vegetarians although the packaging does not say so. No palm oil. And made in France.

Avoid at all costs if you are allergic to peanuts: otherwise give them a try. Probably available at a supermarché near you if you happen to be in France (I only saw them at one motorway service station).

The newspapers say it has been the most horrible summer in Switzerland since 1965. My family went to Holland that year for our summer holiday and I can just remember it being freezing cold and very wet. Ever eaten an ice-cream on a freezing cold dark day in a howling gale? You would remember it too. It was lovely here on Thursday and Friday - lizards in the garden enjoying the sun - but today (Sunday) it is grey and wet and dark. So we have a wood fire even though it isn't as cold as it looks, a polar on the TV and a selection of interesting snacks to try. And we thought these little crispy balls were rather good.

San Carlo Piu Gusto Pomodorini di Stagione

So I think these crisps are seasonal tomato flavour.  This masterful translation is based on years of not eating quatro stagione pizzas (because I don't want artichokes or mushrooms on my pizza, or olives come to that). Google translate prefers "tomato season" but that doesn't sound like a crisp flavour to me.

This packet of crisps is one of the multipacco selection we picked up at the Carrefour supermarcato in Stresa. So it is also one of the piu gusto flavours; in this case it seems, with a mediterranean passion. And why not?

Well, the flavour is obviously tomato, but as so often I think it doesn't really taste of tomato but more of a high quality tomato ketchup. It's odd how difficult tomato flavour is to get right. I've tried a number of different tomato flavour crisps and not a one has actually tasted of tomato. Ketchup, soup, chutney yes; tomato no.

Interestingly the crisps seem to be rather larger than the lime and pink peppercorn crisps from the same multipacco. You'd suppose they would be made on the same production line with the same potatoes. Perhaps it was chance.

The packaging tells me that these crisps have been prepared with undiminished passion since 1936. But this is a simple and natural product with only three ingredients: potatoes, oil and salt. Oh, and then "at the end of cooking to give a hint of flavour sprinkle with the most delicious natural flavours: with taste become more" (Google translate again!).

Whether it is the mediterranean passion or the hint of flavour sprinkle, these are rather good crisps. Not a terrifically strong flavour but very pleasant.

Very easy to finish a small packet without noticing how many you've eaten. Oh, and I have another bag...

Pipers Crisp Co Wissington Spicy Tomato

I picked up these lovely crisps (made by farmers) at Luton Airport. A nice small 40g packet so you don't feel enormously greedy if you eat the whole thing, and if you don't like them then it's not too much of a waste. Except of course that buying anything at an airport is always expensive!

Anyhow, these are lovely crisps. The packaging is very simple; just two shades of tomatoey orange. Which is fine as the flavour is spicy tomato. Don't know what makes it Wissington spicy tomato though. Nice simple typeface. It's a simple smart design.

The crisps themselves are a little smaller than average which is no bad thing. I get a little fed up battling with gigantic sized crisps. And the crunch is just right. Quite a dark tomatoey colour and a terrific spicy flavour.

There is a little bit too much celery for me in the exciting selection of spices: coriander, cayenne, cumin, mustard, black pepper, clove, green cardamom, garlic and marjoram. Most unfortunately I am intolerant to celery so I couldn't eat very many of these crisps (don't want to swell up - best not really) but I do hope you will give them a try if you have the opportunity. They won a Great Taste Gold Award in 2010 and I'm not surprised.

The tomatoes are Norfolk plum tomatoes grown at Cornerways Nursery and (rather fabulously) pollinated by over 50,000 on-site bumblebees. I didn't know people farmed bumblebees but it sounds a great idea. They are such wonderful animals and we don't see anything like as many as we used to.

I'm going to look out for another flavour from Pipers Crisp Co. There are six more flavours to try so I hope to find one soon.

Very nice crisps. Top marks. Watch out if, like me, you can't eat celery. Otherwise.... What's stopping you?

Zweifel Secrets Garden Style & Dried Tomatoes

Well, here's an odd one from Swiss crisp giant Zweifel!

We have an ordinary crisp, pretty good crunch, looks like your average crisp - so far so good - but the taste is weird. At least I think it's a weird taste. I took some into work for the reluctant taste testers to try and most of them seemed to be considerably more enthusiastic than me.

I left half a packet in the kitchen at work and almost all were eaten quite quickly. And I say almost all because I work in the sort of office where everyone is too polite to take the last sandwich or cake, and in this case, crisp.

I'm not sure that basil works very well in a crisp, or not in this crisp. And the dried tomato flavour is distinctly odd. And then there are the actual dried tomatoes. Yes, the dried tomatoey bits are indeed genuine (crunchy) dried tomatoes. Which I find very strange. I think the taste is a bit sour or perhaps a bit too much like an elderly salad which should have been eaten several days ago. I'm not sure what "garden style" is supposed to taste like but I'm guessing that "elderly salad" wasn't what Zweifel was aiming for!

Tall taste tester at work described these crisps rather floridly as "scrapings from an open grave" but having said that he was one of the chief grazers who kept dropping by the kitchen to have another crisp or two. Or possibly three...

The packaging features wood panelling (well, OK, an image of wood panelling) so I suppose Secrets are supposed to be quite a rural style of crisp. I see from the website they also come in Red & Black Pepper flavour, Dijon Mustard, and Garden Style & Dried Beetroot and the wood panelling on the beetroot flavour is a handsome dark red.

Suitable for vegetarians, lactose free, gluten free, and the potato variety is Lady Claire.

Verdict? Let's say interesting.

M&S Hand Cooked Spicy Tomato

You know how your favourite things always get cancelled or discontinued?

Like the wonderful Firefly starring Nathan Fillion. OK so he has gone on to conquer the world as Castle but that doesn't bring back the truly fabulous and much-missed Firefly. Or the brilliant and greatly under-rated Murder in Suburbia with Lisa Faulkner (since winner of Celebrity Master Chef) and Caroline Catz (now in Doc Martin) as two women detectives. I couldn't believe this was cancelled after only two series. The current "two women detectives" show Scott & Bailey I found absolutely dire in comparison but it's now on series 3. I bet they never re-enact a murder scenario with models of Darth Vader and My Little Pony.

Does anyone remember dark chocolate Toffee Crisp in the blue wrapper? Milk chocolate Toffee Crisp is very good but the dark chocolate version was better.

This is not a modern phenomenon. My mother never got over her favourite face powder disappearing in the 1950s. And as for the gall of Bear Brand tights; they stopped making her favourite colour tights in 1970 something. I thought I would never hear the end of it. Of course, my mother died in 1995 so she doesn't mention it much these days, but you get the picture.

Once upon a time, before I joined the family, Zweifel made a tomato flavour crisp. I never got to try but apparently it was sensational. The family, I suppose I really mean Terry, talks about them a lot. So I picked up these crisps in Marks & Spencer to see if they might in some small way compensate for the loss of the Zweifel crisps.

Wow these are crispy. Crunchy too. Huge. And very very spicy. 

Again (see Smiths Spicy Tomato Snaps and Golden Wonder Tangy Toms) the flavour isn't really tomato. It's more tomato something: sauce, soup, chutney. I'm puzzling to work out what exactly but it doesn't really matter. I'm leaning towards the chutney as there's plenty of vinegar going on. These crisps are a spicy tomato something but the spiciness is what you notice.

Quite unusually, in my researches so far, the flavourings include mace and cardamom. And also "flavouring (contains barley)". Sorry? What does barley contribute to a spicy taste? I think I've only knowingly ingested it in lemon barley water (dull and a bit lemony), pearl barley as featured in hotpots and broth (nastily gloopy and not adding positively to the taste), and I suppose barley sugar sweets which hardly qualify for the spicy scale.

The huge spiciness and sheer size of these crisps means that a packet lasts a lot longer than you might expect. The size means you approach them with caution, and the spiciness ensures you don't eat too many at a time. So, good value.

Both Terry and Luke have indicated that they approve. I do too. Although, of course, these crisps are nothing at all like a Zweifel tomato crisp (wrong thickness, wrong taste...) that hardly seems to matter.

Golden Wonder Tangy Toms

A packet of Tangy Toms tomato flavour corn snacks from Golden Wonder has been sitting on my desk for a week waiting for a crunch at lunch moment.

Perhaps this was not a good choice today. With several very stressy tasks to complete by the end of the day I needed something better.

Tomato Flavour Corn Snacks with Sugars and Sweetener says the packaging.
And "Let's hear it for Terrifically Tangy Toms, because every bag of these bad boys... contain no artificial colours or preservative... has just 0.9g of salt per pack... are baked not fried" [sic].

Somehow this terrific write up is rather off-putting. Actually, let's be honest, I find the use of "these bad boys" seriously off-putting. However, the target audience is probably boys aged 8 - 14. Which doesn't include me.

These little ball-shaped corn snacks are about the size of a man's thumb nail and a golden orange colour. Unfortunately the golden orange is only skin deep and this is a shame because the colour is also the flavour which is also only skin deep. I suppose the tangy tomato flavour is OK; fairly spicy, quite tasty, but nothing special. And the taste is more spicy - sorry - tangy tomato sauce rather than tangy tomato.

But as I said, the flavour is only skin deep and the inside, which is much bigger than the outside, is a dry corn snack with nothing to recommend it. We had curried eggs like this for supper at my boarding school sometimes; each table would have a dish of 14 hard boiled eggs sitting in plain boiled rice with a layer of curry on top. Sounds reasonable? Perhaps it would have been if the curry had been more than a couple of millimetres thick. You need more than a skin of flavour.

Verdict? Not very special and far too dry. Shame because Golden Wonder seem to have tried to make these, er, bad boys just a little bit healthier than the norm.

And what is going on with the dreadful faux tomato creature on the packet?

Smith's Spicy Tomato Flavour Snaps

I honestly thought these would be truly disgusting. And they're not. Not disgusting at all despite the wacky crocodile wackily dressed as an American college student on the bag. 

I really must try not to buy them again because they are surprisingly tasty and go down very readily. Once again, lucky thing it's a small packet.

Mmm..... reconstituted potato foaminess! Delicious. With a good crunch. Like the basic and much loved Quaver in texture Snaps are a deep yellowy orange and taste not of spicy tomatoes but spicy tomato soup. I can't quite work out why I feel so strongly about the distinction.

They are of course a completely fake form of food and I am sure have a giant carbon footprint forcing the good old potato into all those bubbles. Really, you might as well use them as packaging for, I don't know, a set of six champagne flutes as eat them.

However. Let's not get overly picky just because the packaging is unspeakably naff. And what do crocodiles have to do with spicy tomato flavour anyway?

Verdict? Yum, surprisingly yum. Well done Mr Smith.