16 December 2010

Mackie’s Haggis & Cracked Blacked Pepper Crisps (Sainsbury’s, Edinburgh)


Recently I was visiting Edinburgh, when I saw these on the shelf in a branch of Sainsbury’s. Obviously they went straight into the basket, along with a few other bits and bobs. When I was at the till I eagerly mentioned to the lady working at the checkout how excited I was to find haggis crisps, and all she said was, in a low, half-hearted, Scottish tone ‘yea’.
I realised soon after, while making the obligatory visit to Edinburgh Castle, that even the cafe there sold them, so perhaps if you are Scottish this isn’t anything new, but I thought it was a very exciting treat.
I actually manage to save the crisps until I had returned to England from my visit, and had them as an accompaniment to sandwiches one lunch time. I was rather impressed with the flavour, they had a lovely meatiness about them, and the black pepper left a gentle spice as an after taste.
There was a good amount of coating on each of these crunchy crisps, and the flavour had a lovely complex nature. I could pick up on beef, sausage, onion and all matter of rich tastes. Probably the easiest way of describing them would be to say that they are a little like mixing Worcestershire Sauce flavour crisps, with Sausage crisps and an equal amount of Marmite crisps seasoning. Ultimately if you are like me and love meat flavoured crisps, these are worth seeking out and will make a lovely treat from any Scottish trip.
By Cinabar

8 comments:

Anne said...

Yes you can buy these everywhere here in Edinburgh. :-) But I also think it is nice that they are not available as widely outside Scotland, keeps them a bit special.

Glad you liked them though! As i have mentioned in another comment before, I am not very keen on most of your crips flavours here in the UK but I really do enjoy this one. Though if it didn't say so on the package, I would probably not recognise it as Haggis flavour. But as you say they have a nice meatniness about them and I love the cracked pepper that comes with it! And there is still a nice taste from the potatos coming through.

Sakura said...

Just to let you know, I bought these today in my local Lidl in Somerset! Alone with another flavour of theirs - Aberdeen Angus. They were 99p per bag. I bought them to try thanks to your recommendation!

Anonymous said...

Surely lamb/mutton not beef as a flavour. There's no beef in haggis

cinabar said...

Anne - They are really good, and I rather enjoyed them. We bought a bag of Mackie's Scotch Bonnet Chilli too - which we are saving for a special occasion, but will be reviewing soon.

Sakura - Somerset? Wow - I've not seen them here in the West Midlands. What did you think of them?

Anon - Yes these crisps, although lovely and meaty, don't taste very much like lamb or haggis. But they are good. :-)

Anne said...

had a wee taste of teh Scotch Bonnet ones at teh Royal Highland Show in June and quite liked them too! Actually I do rather like all the Mackie crisps I have tried as their seasoning tends to be well balanced and they have nothing too crazy.

cinabar said...

Haggis - not crazy? It is a bit down here in England! :-)
Mackies ice cream is a lot more easy to find round these parts, I wish the crisps were too.

Sandy's witterings said...

Strangely google presented this review to me when I was looking for Marmite Truffles (far superiour to the chocolate and as yet unblogged.) - I see you've covered them too.
I was indifferent to Haggis crisps but they did give me something to write about http://miceforlent.blogspot.com/2010/09/maccrisps.html

cinabar said...

Sandy - the official Marmite choc is nasty, BUT the Paul A young Marmite truffles are divine, so cleverly balanced!