Carrefour Petites Crêpes Fourées Goût Bacon

Another own brand crispy snack from Carrefour, another French (slash Belgian) snack flavoured with bacon. Which is always a bit of a surprise. Yes, in case you hadn't noticed, bacon is apparently French for bacon. I have actually seen proper chefs talking about “le bacon” on French tv.

And there really is bacon in this tasty apéro snack so of course it’s not suitable for vegetarians. Although actually, the creamy bacony stuffing is a bit too tasty for me, but there you are. I’m not sure I like it that much.

And there’s another problem for me. I really don’t like this little miniature stuffed “crepe”. For some reason the shape disgusts me. Now, I’m sure this is just me being weird. But it does stop me feeling I can recommend them to you. Make no mistake; I thought the picture on the packet looked like a tasty snack. It’s just when I started to taste them. I think they’re too small. Too odd.

Carrefour Crêpettes Fourrage au Roquefort, is also a Carrefour own brand product as you can see, and looks very similar (but weirdly with a rather different name) and I have to admit I really couldn’t fancy the shape/size/style of that snack either.

Odd. And you know what? For the first time in a long time I didn’t want to finish the packet.

What a pity.

Les Recettes Belin Pita Crack’s Herbes de Provence & Huile d’Olive Vierge Extra

Ski Instructor and Tractor Fan Taste Testers drove down through France to stay with me and the Chef and brought this little packet of triangular pitta chips with them. Unfortunately, they managed to finish the whole packet before I got a look in. And threw the packet away before I had a chance to photograph it! However, luckily we have quite a clean bin, and it was easy to fish the packet out.

I didn’t have the chance to assess the crunch or the taste of these little crackers, but I can tell you the remaining dust and crumbs at the bottom of the bags smell pretty good. The herbes de Provence; rosemary, thyme, marjoram and savoury (also known as the herb of love apparently), probably made this rather a tasty snack.

The Chef tells me he managed to snaffle one and thought the taste was nice, but a bit herby for his taste, and the bite rather hard. 

Not sure that using extra virgin olive oil in the recipe would make a better cracker or pitta chip than the ordinary stuff. But who knows?

Grizzy and the Lemmings: Crunch Yeah

This top quality (and amazingly violent in a jolly fashion) Canadian animation is about a grizzly bear who moves into a park ranger’s house as soon as the ranger leaves - perhaps he goes home to visit his mum? we never find out - and a slice or gang of out of control lemmings determined to invade his space and destroy his peace. [Numerous online sources assure me that slice really is the word for a group of lemmings but I confess I really find this quite hard to believe.]

Grizzy mostly eats salmon (he also watches what looks like Salmon TV), and a Nutella-style spread called Yummy; sometimes he spreads Yummy on his fish. The lemmings love speed, and anything bouncy (or disco), and will do anything including destroying the entire planet for a jar of Yummy but they are also pretty keen on the would-be Cheesy Wotsit (or Cheeto) crispy snack Grizzy sometimes eats: it’s called Crunch Yeah.

This rather bad snap of Grizzy vaulting upside down to escape some ghastly fate shows a packet of Crunch Yeah tucked into his belt.Which is interesting as Grizzy never normally wears a belt.

If any crispy snack entrepreneur is thinking of launching a new Wotsit style corn puff type of snack I can’t help feeling that “Crunch Yeah” wouldn’t be a bad name. I would probably buy a packet. I think maybe the reluctant taste testers might too. I might suggest calling it Crunch Yeah! though. I feel an exclamation mark might help the marketing.

I have struggled to find a scene to grab a shot of the Crunch Yeah snack but if you know what Wotsits or Cheetos look like you will know just what I’m talking about, and here’s a photo of some M&S Cheese Tasters (very similar in style) just in case you don’t.

Sadly only ever seen on French TV.

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.

Carrefour Crêpettes Fourrage au Roquefort

Here's an own brand crispy snack from massive French supermarket Carrefour. It's a fine and crispy pastry (sort of) wrap with squashy Roquefort cheese stuffing. And it reminds me of the 1970s favourite Findus Crispy Pancakes which are now made by Birds Eye. You bought a packet of small frozen crispy pancakes and whipped one or two out of the freezer in case of emergency, then struggled to eat them because, once fried or grilled, the stuffing was as boiling as boiling could be. Naff, and I'm sure not at all healthy, these easily cooked 70s snacks were something even my brother could cook up in the school holidays if he wanted something more sustaining than breakfast cereal while my mother was at work.

Of course, this little snack is miles smaller, and you don't have to cook it. More perhaps like a miniature spring roll. But there is a sort of a link with the cheesy pancakes which the Chef identified quite independently. So not just me for a change.

H. W. Lay Mature Cheddar

Last year I ate almost an entire packet of the sensational Sea Salt version of these retro-style crisps from H W Lay, now here's the Mature Cheddar version.

For me there was too much cheesy taste, but the Chef was extremely impressed and snacked down the whole packet himself. I think we can rate these a success but I think I will stick with the Sea Salt version.

A slightly thicker crisp than Lay's (or Walkers) usual offerings and none the worse for that.

Both these flavours we found in France.

Walkers Poppables BBQ Rib Flavour

New! Perfectly poppable crispy potato bites says the packet, oh so tasty,  crunchy 3D shape, and Mmmm. Well, let’s give this a try.

Interesting. Looking at the packet you can’t really tell how much latticework is involved in these 3D crispy snacks. Some are round, some a pointy oval. Some coloured with a little red flavour dust, some not so much. And very few breakages which is always a good sign. But you probably know I am a sucker for a lattice snack.

And the taste: BBQ ribs... which doesn’t inspire much confidence in the old fashioned snacker or reluctant taste tester, is considerably more subtle than I was expecting. I am absolutely not sure how  BBQ Rib flavour differs from a BBQ anything else flavour but there you go. The Walkers website tells me this shape comes in Cheddar Cheese and Sweet Chili too. I haven’t seen either to try them.

A nice gentle crunch and a gentle taste too.

Taste the poppabilities!

Co-op Turkey & Stuffing Legs

Well, well, here's a thing; three dimensional pretend turkey legs in Turkey and Stuffing flavour made with lattice style extruded potato starch.

Complicated? Yes, a bit. But you know, they've got the technology to make all sorts of shapes these days. You don't have to employ an army of underpaid workers to make your little shapes. The machines do it all for you. So why not?

And as we know Turkey & Stuffing is usually a reliable, if not successful flavour for crispy snacks, so again, why not?

Obviously I spotted these in our local Co-op when I went out for emergency washing up liquid on Christmas Eve (the lemon fragrance smells more like shoe polish - or is that just me?), so how could I resist?

The little leg shapes smell just right. The texture is light with a light bite. The flavour... a little too heavy on the herbs I think. But not bad. A fun crispy snack for children I imagine. And probably just for Christmas.

The Real McCoy's Chips Chip Shop Salt & Vinegar

Wow! these are vinegary. So vinegary that the taste gets into your nose.

The text on the packet tells us that shoppers have been flocking to local stores to get their hands on the latest full on Chip Shop experience - in a bag! Well, perhaps. But I'm not certain I'm going to flock anywhere.  This crispy snack is described as crinkled chips but they're not a crinkle cut crisp: they are obviously extruded from some fancy machine.

I quite like the look of the snack, but the flavour not so much. Apparently you can get them in Sea Salt and Curry Sauce flavours. Hmmn.. the Sea Salt might be OK. Not so keen to try the Curry Sauce.

I'm not a regular visitor to chip shops. I had some nice chips from a place in Cirencester a million years ago and was very unwell after eating them so ... well, obviously that doesn't encourage you to go back. Plus I don't eat fish and I wasn't brought up to eat a thing called a saveloy. I'm not even sure we have a local chip shop round here.

I'm not sure I'm going to recommend this crispy snack. Not nasty, but not to my personal taste. If you like the look of it, give it a try. You might think I a quite wrong. Let me know.

M&S The Collection Beef Wellington Hand Cooked Crisps

I was in Marks & Spencer buying their fabulous cheese boule (a loaf of bread not a crispy snack) when I came across this packet of improbably flavoured crisps. I made a Beef Wellington once, a long time ago, when I had a boyfriend who was much more impressed by show than the Chef is. It wasn’t bad but to be honest I thought it was a whole lot of work to get a fancy result. All that chopping of mushrooms and wrapping things in Prosciutto and then puff pastry: it’s all a little bit 1970s.

I haven’t gone to all that effort since but I did wonder how the crispy snack boffins at M&S would manage with their self imposed flavour.

At first bite: not a success. Because it’s M&S there’s nothing the matter with the crisps themselves although the colour is considerably darker than usual. But the flavour is definitely weird. If you know to look for it, I think you can detect mushrooms. Not perhaps the ideal flavour for a crispy snack.

I tried these crisps on the Chef, the Graffiti Artist (who is a genuine chef) and Cliffs of Moher Taste Tester and frankly, none of us was impressed. We don’t like to be snarky, but honestly thought them not very nice. Sorry about that.