M&S Tex Mex Burrito Bean Chips

Yet another choice from the history graduate taste tester. Is he mad for crispy snacks or what?

Obviously I had spotted this fairly new crispy snack on the shelf in Marks & Spencer, and marked it as something to try quite soon. But I have a large pile of crisps and crispy snacks at home and try to get through them before buying something new. This sensible scheme doesn't always work! However, history graduate taste tester got there before me.

And wow! look at that. This scary looking oval-shaped rather dark brown crispy snack is pretty tasty. I would have tried this - honest - but I would not have believed how extremely yummy this kidney bean chip really is. Although... only 10% beans. So that's probably why is doesn't qualify for the healthy label. Because the rest is maize.

I'm not at all sure what the taste is here. The ingredients include onions, tomatoes and cheese, along with ancho chillies, garlic, cloves, allspice and lime oil. Interesting combination. Whatever it is, it's a very tasty taste. Yes, thanks, I will have another.

Not only is this crispy snack very tasty, but these gorgeous brown ovals hold their shape extremely well. Hurrah!

The packaging does not show the true colour of this crispy snack. For a change my photograph is much more accurate.

Bret's Saveur Chèvre & Piment d'Espelette

This is a really lovely crisp. The reluctant taste testers and I liked it a great deal. Even tech taste tester and the tall taste tester who say they don't like goat's cheese. Noble friend, who says she really hates goat's cheese, didn't try. But that's OK. It's not obligatory to try something you don't fancy.

Seriously. This is a wonderful crinkle cut crisp. Quite small, lovely crunch, and a very genuine taste of goat's cheese but with a fantastic touch of chilli that stops the cheese flavour being too bland.

I don't know how they got such a realistic goat's cheese taste but they did. Fantastic. Yum.

Interesting. The packet tells me we can discover Le Pays Basque by eating these crisps: partez à la découverte du Pays Basques avec les chips Chèvre et Piment d'Espelette. Leur saveur vous emporte vers les collines douces et parsemées de troupeaux de chèvres puis vous invite à découvir les villages intérieurs, aux façades rouges come le piment, cette épice au goût à la fois subtil at puissant.

Highly recommended if you happen to be in France or indeed Le Pays Basque. And you like goat's cheese.

KP Hula Hoops Stars

Ever had Hula Hoops? Of course you have. At least if you live in the UK. Well, look what I found in Sainsbury's. Star-shaped Hula Hoops.

Seasonal shaped crispy snacks seem to have appeared all over the place in the last couple of years. A Christmas tree is a popular shape but stars are fairly Christmassy too. The reluctant taste testers and I pondered this at work the other day. We wondered about angel-shaped snacks. They might be good. Three wise men? And what about baby Jesus shapes? Perhaps not.

Did I see holly leaf shapes in Tesco a year ago? I think I might have but I can't remember. We have of course tried Jacobs Treeselets; tree-shaped instead of rectangular, Jacobs Cheesonal Mini Cheddars which come in bell and snowman shapes instead of round, KP Cheese & Tomato Christmas Crackers which come in bell, star and tree shapes, and Tesco Snowmen Tortilla Chips. Shame about the lack of angels. Cookie cutters always come angel-shaped and reindeer too. Ooh....

These stars were smaller than I was expecting. Somehow I had expected the inside of the star to be the same size as the inside of a regular Hula Hoop. But no. The outer points of the star seem to be the same size as a regular Hula Hoop and then the inner points are just squished in from that size. So you can't put them on your finger unless you are a very very small child. Kind of disappointing.

Returned maternity leave taste tester (I must think of a better nom de crispy snack for her) missed these little stars. She isn't in the office every day. But her first question was; can you still fit them on your fingers? Because, you know, what could be better than food you can fit on your fingers and then eat? So not just disappointing to me.

Otherwise these are just exactly like a regular Hula Hoop. Quite a hard crunch and lightly salted. Pretty good.

Improbable though it may seem, this is the 400th crispy blog post!

M&S Lightly Salted Christmas Tree Tortilla Chips

I'm not sure that I'm tremendously impressed by these Christmas tree shaped tortilla chips. They look great... but I don't know. They just don't work as well as they might.

So we have lightly salted Christmas tree shaped corn tortilla chips, half with added spinach and red pepper pieces. Yes, nice idea. But for some reason the spinach chips don't hold their structural integrity at all well (they break) so the packet seemed to contain mostly plain trees with a scant third of spinach flavour chips. Plus a lot of very broken bits.

I've said it before, and no doubt will feel the need to say it again, but a shaped chip or crispy snack must hold its shape because without the advertised shape it loses much of its reason for being. I mean, ordinary potato crisps don't claim a shape so if they break it somehow doesn't matter, but Christmas tree shaped snacks that are not Christmas tree shaped just don't work.

This is not a very exciting crispy snack. The plain ones are lightly salted and quite pleasant. And the green ones have a slightly more interesting flavour. The crunch is fine. We've discussed the shape already. At home the Chef and I tried them with a dip. Still not very exciting.

But, if you are looking for a nice plain crispy snack (and I know that's what some people prefer) this might be what you're looking for.

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.

Lay's Kettle Cooked Wasabi Ginger

This 8 oz packet of crisps was exported from the United States especially for me and the reluctant taste testers by generous bloggy friend Betsy. And for my metric measuring readers that's a gigantic 226.8g! Amazing.

Anyway, it turns out that this flavour was the winner in Lay's 2014 Do Us a Flavor Choose Your Chip competition. The Wasabi Ginger flavour was created by mother of three daughters Meneko Spigner McBeth, and she won a million dollars. Good for her! I read all about her on the back of the packet.

And it is a pretty good flavour. The reluctant taste testers were very impressed.

These crisps are not as pale as the photograph shows, have a very nice crunch and are packed full of flavour. There's a lovely ginger zing followed by the distinctive "horse radish" wasabi flavour. And they are made with real wasabi not just regular wasabi substitute horse radish.

As I said, the reluctant taste testers liked these a lot and ate two bowlsful. And we still had some left over for the family funeral this week.

It is unfortunate that I don't like horse radish. Never have. So I don't really like wasabi. But that's my personal taste. I think this is a really great crisp flavour, a proper crisp flavour like salt & vinegar or cheese & onion. And well done Meneko for suggesting it.

M&S Eat Well Bacon, Tomato & Worcester Sauce Potato Snacks

Ever hopeful, the reluctant taste testers and I tried another Eat Well flavour from Marks & Spencer. And this time (what a relief) it's made with potatoes.

So what gives this snack its Eat Well healthiness factor? It's low in saturated fats. But the recipe still contains (probably plenty of) sugar and salt. And it's a complicated recipe. The Worcester sauce flavour is cobbled together with tamarind paste, cloves, ginger and garlic; the tomato seems to be tomato, and the bacon? That's vegetarian, indeed vegan, bacon.

Not a bad flavour and we quite liked it. I thought the flavour was mainly Worcester sauce... with a little added bacon. Not sure that we would try them again though.

Interesting choice of mauve for the packaging. Very unusual.

Vico Saveur Steak Grillé

This little 20g bag of crinkle cut crisps came from a multi-pack I bought in France. We tried Vico's Poulet Grillé earlier this year and liked them enormously. In fact, I added them to my list of favourites.

And here we have the grilled steak flavour. Pretty good.

Nice little crinkle cut crisps with a true grilled steak flavour - and not suitable for vegetarians. The meaty crisp fans among the reluctant taste testers were impressed.

However, the back of the packet has a great example of French as she is spoken these days: une chips ondulée et craquante. Yes, une chips. Sigh. And then une saveur Steack [sic] délicieusement Grillé. Which is odd because steak is spelled steak on the front.

The serving suggestion on the front of the packet is a bit weird too. I'm not sure whether I should be scattering the crisps from above... and possibly snatching them out of the sky like a trained killer whale? Or even madder perhaps; serving them with real grilled steak?  What do you think?

Despite being a huge fan of eating meat I think I really prefer a more vegetarian flavour for my crisps, but to be honest it's hard to quibble when faced with such a well-achieved grilled steak flavour.

M&S Mini Poppadums

This crispy snack was another choice provided by the history graduate taste tester. Which pleased the extremely skeptical taste tester who just loves the taste and the texture of poppadoms.

The packaging suggests this would be the perfect accompaniment to curry. And the serving suggestion shows a bowl of finely sliced red onion.

So not really intended to be eaten raw as it were. Or solo. But nonetheless, they are pretty good. And a nice little size for snacking. A shame we didn't have any chutney in the office.

And... made from gram flour which is ground chickpeas and could perhaps be slightly healthier for you than maize or potato flour. But I notice that M&S don't claim any sort of healthiness.

The pink and purple packaging is really very pretty although with that clear panel it does look better before you eat all the poppadums.

For some reason I failed to take a photograph of these miniature poppadoms. I know they're called mini but they seem really tiny compared to the dinner plate sized poppadoms of my childhood. But anyway, you can see exactly what they look like from the packet.

Pringles Flame Grilled Steak Flavour

The tall elegant taste tester bought these to eat at home but then discovered she really didn't like them. She thought they were just too strong. Rather than throw them away she offered them for the reluctant taste testers to try.

And as you know, we have several keen fans of meaty flavoured crisps amongst the taste testers so there were plenty of takers interested to try these cast offs. And they do taste surprisingly steaky. It really is a very accurate flavour. No wondering if might be meant to represent roast lamb, or perhaps turkey with stuffing. So most of the reluctant taste testers unreluctantly tucked in.

 

But I did see what the tall elegant taste tester meant. I had the tub on my desk - with the lid on - but somehow the very strong aroma seeped out. The flame grilled steak flavour does stick to your fingers a bit, but at least there's no orange dye to colour your finger tips.

 

This would not be my most favourite Pringles flavour but they were pretty popular with everyone else here. Except of course the tall elegant taste tester.