I love what Stuart Maconie refers to as a salty snack. Tonight I had a large bowl of Twiglets with a pre dinner sherry, though it could easily have been KP Dry Roasted Peanuts, or pistachios. Sure for more poncy occasions an olive is good, or a tray of Waitrose charcuterie. I love a nib. How about you?
Nibbles
by 50 Comments
Just had some smoked hickory flavoured crisps. Not bad with a glass of Black Stump. I have work tomorrow – but frankly, f*** it.
I will eat any heavily processed, highly flavoured maize or potato-based snack at this time of night.
Health? A nice idea. But totally impractical.
Pint of Bloody Mary + stacks of peanuts. Works every time.
Also in favour are Tyrrells Crisps – sorry for the product placement, but they really are the best, though I’m hacked off with the number of stores who won’t now sell the Ludlow Sausage and Mustard variety.
Bit of a craving for Bombay mix at the moment, though my favourite Indian snack is Chevdo or Chevda. When I lived in Leicester, the corner shop always had some in. Now I can’t find it in this country and have to wait for food parcels from sister-in-law in Nairobi.
Finally, so far I have resisted a lovely packet of biltong in my cupboard, Christmas present from my South African friends. Soon, I will crumble.
You have to be careful with Bombay mix. Some of it is like putting Strontium 90 in your mouth.
When I lived in France we used to have a large Bloody Mary with a bowl of miniature dried sausages. Yum.
Saucisson sec, in all its fabulous varieties. Gorgeous stuff, but inclined to seek out loose fillings, I find.
I’ll bring some up to Shrewsbury in the summer, CC. Brum still has many outlets that make their own, selling by the kilo, alongside freshly fried samosas, stuffed chillis, stuffed potatoes and all manner of potato, lentil, chilli and burning hot oil based snacks. Mmmmmmm.
Oddly I find a cup of coffee is ideal after hot hot and hot spicy crispy arteriosclerotic fancies, for the warming sensation as the hot liquid tingles up the already galvanised tastebuds.
Retro, you are worth your weight in Jura. By the way, have you seen the new addition to the line up? Nick Lowe, Paul Carrack and Andy Fairweather Lowe. Is that going to be good or what?
Had to check that, @thecheshirecat , it seeming an odd trio, wondering if they were all separate, but no. Intriguing. Fairweather-Lowe I have seen with his Low Riders, a bit ploddy blues-rock barband, but I like the idea of him from all those Amen Corner songs and from the acoustic Clapton sessions. Suppose that’s the Carrack connection, as he was Clapton’s keyboards at the Low Riders gig, when they were supporting the deaf Beano reader. Never managed to catch Nick Lowe, so that is making for a real treat in store. As is most of the line-up announced so far. Cambridge are going to have to pull a plunger to get me there as well but you never know.
Cornichons. Oh alright then, ‘Baby Gherkins’.
Capers.
Cashews.
Pistachios.
Anchovy paste.
And tapenade, oh God yes tapenade.
Anything that’s salt / brine masquerading as something else, really.
Am I taking Colchicine and Allopurinol for gout? Well yes I am as a matter of fact, how clever of you – how on Earth could you possibly have known that?
I have been warned off salt by the doctor – dagger to my heart – so now it’s all about the unsalted roasted cashews. Unfortunately, you can’t binge-eat them unless you’re prepared for the inevitably unpleasant consequences…
You can’t binge eat them for the simple reason that they’re truly awful. I tried them a while ago and immediately found myself wishing for Death’s sweet release.
Fresh peanuts. Really. Quite unlike the salted/dry-roasted ones.
Insects. Little grasshoppers. Delish.
And you love that upturned half-coconut as well, don’t you?
I’ve got a bit of a thing for Jacobs’ Oddities, the cheese flavour ones, which are intensely cheesey and provide a regular and instant cheese rush. (All as part of a strict calorie controlled diet, natch. Other cheesey snacks are available).
Our daughter was given a bag of Oddities by her auntie for the first time a while ago.
They were new to all of us. I asked my daughter what they were called given that I couldn’t see the lettering on the bag properly with her little hand stuffed in it.
Without removing her hand from said crumpled bag she had a look,
‘Ooties. They’re called Ooties.’
Ooties they have remained.
I very much appreciate something sour and salty on my tongue (oh yes!) when drinking a cold beer. Wasabi peas do it for me and sometimes if you take two at once you get a slightly painful hit of hotness shooting up into the nasal cavity, which is an entirely pleasurable pain I find.
Snacks, like crisps, are better cheaper. Just as Aldi multipack cheese and onion crisps are vastly superior to sea salt and rosemary, pan fried, gourmet potato slices ( honestly, if aliens came to call and you offered them two bowls – one of even, golden, savoury loveliness and othe other of charred shards which stank of burnt sunflower oil which would they think was the more desirable product? Exactly.) so handfuls of salt and vinegar spirals, cheesy puffs or bacon flavoured rashers beat supposedly up market snack experiences every time.
Well, that’s another theory disproved. Last night’s bottle of re
Well, that’s another theory disproved. Last night’s bottle of red was accompanied with a pack of Aldi bacon rasher things – they were awful. On past experience though the rest of their snack range is worth a go.
Sainsbury’s Onion Rings. Probably just dust and E-numbers kept apart by fresh air with absolutely no redeeming food qualities whatsoever. Dirty, dirty, food.
Olives Et Al habas. Bizarrely, sold at the nearby agricultural merchants (Tractors R’ Us) next to the raddling crayons and cow clogs. Deep-fried broad beans, with a variety of coatings.
We also have beer sausages here (öl korv). They can be quite nice to sink your teeth into. Long and slender. Best if they’re a little hot and spicy. They do repeat on you a bit though.
Last night’s bathtime fun was accompanied by a bottle of Crabbie’s Ginger Beer and a small bowl of those peanuts you get that are covered in a crispy, chill-flavoured shell. I’ve been obsessed with them since Christmas, and the mania shows no sign of flagging yet. Music was the first side of Bowie’s Tonight, on cassette.
Then you dropped them in the bath and in the ensuing scrabble to retrieve them Mr. Breakfast was heard to shriek “Ow, gerroff! Them’s not your chilli peanuts!”
Oh heck, did we leave the webcam on again? Oopsie.
Mr B has just poured me what looks like half a hundredweight of chilli peanuts. The Rennie is on standby, as is the Crabbie’s.
Hot nuts are clearly your thing.
Nice to see you also favour a cheeky ginger.
http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t449/GCU_Grey_Area/salti_zpswgfpizjw.jpg
Sherry? No!!
Crofts Original, straight out of the fridge. Delicious.
Garners Free Range Pickled Eggs – straight out of the fridge, and up to bed.
I take a bowl of green and black olives to my bedchamber of a night. I also have drawer that has a bag of emergency cashews in it for a pre-dawn munch if required.
Next to the current issue of Foxy Boho Chicks Monthly?
No. I keep Sexy Foxy Witchy Type Boho Chick Monthly in my Grimoire. Keeps it nice and flat you see. Essential for invocations if I can’t find my second hand copy of Necromancy For Eejits.
Ah, the joy of the Afterword. Word of the day – Grimoire.
Water melon seeds (guazi) are the salty snack of choice for Chinese people. The wife will crack her way through a whole pack (and leave a huge mess of husks) during one home movie. Me I prefer pistachios.
Pork scratchings, which must be the most unhealthy food known to man but are all the better for it..
Also, Poundland do a big bag of those cheesy biscuit things shaped like the suits in a deck of playing cards that were always out at the start of a party, and were still there at the end. Taken out of that context they’re rather moreish.
The nearest pub to me, not my local but the nearest, has a plate of small cubes of mature cheddar on the bar on Sunday lunch time. Lush. In fact a slice of cheese at any time is lush. Mature cheddar, or Leerdammer particularly.
Nowadays I just drink tea and suck my fingers.
Twiglets, olives, japanese rice crackers plus wheat beer – perfect.
Otherwise anything I happen to have, quite partial tomato paste squeezed onto cracker but haven’t really found the drink to go with it.
Cheese footballs I have an unhealthy and unrealistic zen for. Steamed up by childhood memories of nowt more exotic than plain crisps, these I discovered at the yearly Xmas day cocktails at our next door neighbours aged about 7. I bought a tub this year. First you loosen the crusty half-lid with your teeth, crunching it down, then peeling away the other half and doing same. This leaves you with a lump of vaguely cheesy amalgam. One is wonderful and two too many. In fact I have the tub beside me.
Some beef biltong with an ice cold Castle Draught or kudu biltong in winter with a Guinness or three makes me a very happy chap!
A glass of Oloroso with some of Lidl’s salted roasted almonds. Yum.
I fear I am addicted to Cheddars (particularly the Cheese and Bacon variety).
The Snack-Size bags are all very well ,but it is not unknown to polish off an entire tube of the full size biccies in one sitting.
Ritz or Tuc will suffice as an alternative, but just don’t hit the spot.
I could eat a whole box of Ritz in one go, so I’ll have yours, chook. I allow myself a box every few weeks, and have to dole a few out, and then put the box back up on the highest shelf.
Has to be boxed Ritz, and none of these Ritz-sandwich abominations.
Ritz Sandwich – eeugh!
What is that stuff? Purports to be cheese, but is nearer a combination of earwax and baby vomit.
Still, someone (somewhere) must like ’em, or they wouldn’t be selling them (fools!)
I believe it is the self-same congealing nectar they put in the cheese football, see above.
A box of Ritz and a tube of Primula make for a heady combination.
Primula with Chives, for that added touch of class
Thumbnail-size chunks of Vintage Gouda with a tub of cheap oil-dressed pitted green olives and some hot pickled red bell peppers.
Tyrell’s Veg Crisps (especially the beetroot ones). Or their Sweet Chilli & Red Pepper ones. A whole 150g bag in a single sitting, washed down with a very large G&T.
Partially Rehydrated Dried Apricots (it says on the 500g packet) with chunks of vintage cheddar.
Partially Rehydrated Dried Figs (see above) with a wedge of Blue Stilton.
Better late than never. I must put a word in for Taralli / Tarallini.
On checking Wikipedia I see that I have to qualify that with ‘savoury’.
Anyway, for me they were underwhelming at first but then mystereously went very moreish.
The two flavours I look out for are chilli (predictable) and fennel (a surprise hit).
I’ve never tried, or even seen, sweet ones.