Midget Gems - Sugar Free (Degusta) By @SpectreUK

These Midget Gems were produced by Free From Fellows and they sound a little too healthy to be sweets. They are gelatine and gluten free, with no artificial colours or flavours, or sugar! Yes, you read that right… No sugar. They are made with sweetener and syrup. I'd say they are free from fruit juice too, however the only juice concentrate mentioned in the ingredients is black carrot, which doesn't sound very appetising. Black Carrot sounds like a Death Metal Health Rock Band for people who like a bit of wicked and yet in a healthy feeling wellness kind of way.

These Midget Gems gummies are produced in both a red berry and a blackberry mould. There was a very juicy fruity berry smell on opening the packet. I thought I'd try a red berry gummy first. The red berry tasted a little too waxy to taste of anything in particular, which was pretty disappointing. I'm not keen on eating snacks for the sake of finishing the packet anymore, if they taste bad, I'm not wasting the calories on it. I realise that may sound wrong to some people, but I'm still trying to keep my weight down and rehabilitate my knee. So I figured I'd just stick with the black berry ones if they tasted okay. The black berry gummies taste like black carrot… okay, I'm kidding… but there was that heavy coating of carnauba wax again that just totally put me off that flavour too. Shame really, I do love gummy sweets and was hoping for a low calorie alternative. I'll just keep looking, I guess…

Information on the packet;

The 100g packet contains 217 calories, with no sugar, 0.3g of fat, and 0.07g of salt. Vegan friendly, please see photograph for the ingredients.

Cheesies – Crunchy Popped Cheese – Cheddar (Holland and Barrett) By @Cinabar

I’m going to be honest the term Crunchy Popped Cheese meant nothing to me when I picked up this bag in Holland and Barrett. Cheese is not usually crunchy, or popped and this wasn’t even found in a chiller cabinet. I like cheese, no I love cheese, so I had to figure out what this product was all about. I’ve had popped crisps before and these seem to be cooked in a similar way, heat until they dry out and pop, they look a bit like croutons as they are airy like a bread and crunchy too. The only ingredient in them though is cheese. I’m not sure when the correct time to eat these is, perhaps just watching the telly, we had them with a cheese meal which was a little over formal for these snacks.
So they taste like a really nice cheddar, quite a strong flavour with plenty of depth. I liked the taste very much. The texture is light and crunchy, my brain was telling me it was wrong but the more I ate it grew on me. I probably would have these again, I think they would be fun to munch on while watching a film. They were lower in calories than I expected too, but not so low in fat as they are cheese after all.

Walkers American Hot Pizza Crisps (Waitrose) By @Cinabar

Gosh it is nice to see a new flavour of crisps on the shelves, and these sound quite exciting too. They have been inspired by a favourite meal out of mine, I present Walkers American Hot Pizza Crisps. I like pizza, I look forward to getting a pizza be it takeaway for from the oven and I like crisps, so these sounded perfect for me.

The crisps are the usual Walkers texture, quite thinly cut but this works well for them. They are covered in a paprika coloured seasoning too. The flavour works very well, there are a lot of Italian herbs in the flavour, which follows a rich meatiness with a little spice. That will be the paprika shining through and perhaps a touch of chilli, but they aren’t too hot overall. They are meaty and flavoursome and I found myself rather enjoying the Italian tastes, perfect for when you can’t choose between pizza and crisps, have both.

I’ve heard there are other takeaway flavours available too which I’m keeping my eye out for, so looking forward to the Nando’s Chicken crisps. 

Black Snacks Matter #BlackLivesMatter (by @NLi10)

There is a lot of history happening at the moment.  With the virus (which I'm directly involved in due to counting numbers for the NHS) I know what to say (stay local, stay safe) and what to do.  With the other thing, the race thing, it's not as clear.

Whether it's the place of a white, Anglo-Irish snack food critic to advise about the problems facing Black communities isn't really up for debate - it's not my area of expertise or experience at all.  But as my wrestler friends have shown - if you have a platform (no matter how small) then use it for good.

Black Lives Matter

Snacks are an odd place when it comes to nationality and stereotypes.  We've reviewed lots of food with 'Jamaica' or 'Caribbean' in the name that have very little to do with those places.  There are lots of local stores which have all kinds of import goods from Black backgrounds - I do love some of the drinks and we've eaten in Summit on the Dudley Road (Birmingham is great for multiculturalism) although its always very welcoming I've never been brave enough to try the Sexy Juice (pineapple) or Irish Moss (seaweed?).  I need to remedy this.

Shamefully I've not really found many African snacks (does Guinness Malt count?), but I've eaten in a lot of the local restaurants.  I need to make a special effort to go more often.

There is a definite Middle Eastern tilt to the food shops nearest me (especially Persian/Egyptian) and I've not really been in as much as I should.  I know the Iranian lemon kebabs are great but what about all the other scary stuff?

I think the point I'm trying to make is that we can all do better.  We can all talk to new people from different cultures and say "what's good" or even "I'm new, What should I try first?".

Business have been hit hard by the Covid (and will continue to be so - this isn't over - not by a long shot) and a little local friendliness can go a long way towards not only showing that you are interested in other people and their cultures, but that you value all colours of your community.

Meantime London Lager (Co-op) By @SpectreUK

I don't often write about lagers, mainly because I'm usually not all that keen on them. They can be a little gaseous and leave me expelling the most impressive belches. The belches are often frowned upon, especially if I giggle or when I try to make burp a tune. This London Lager was produced by the Meantime London Brewing Company, and sounds a bit too posh to leave me trying to burp the National Anthem, but we shall soon see! Besides, I'm still trying to perfect my Tusken Raider burp voice!

Anyway, at 4.5% volume East Anglian Malt and Goldings Hops were used in the brewing. On opening the bottle there was a crisp malty yeasty aroma with a light floral spiciness from the hops. This golden cheerfully fizzy lager has a sweet malt flavour to begin with, followed by an earthy floral and slightly spicy bitterness from the Goldings hops. This is a very flavoursome lager indeed and after a few swigs I noticed that I hadn't particularly burped that much… although…!

I'd definitely have this craft lager again. The ingredients seemed to have been well thought out and used to provide the maximum of flavour, with a fine balance of sweet malt and floral spicy hops. This London Lager is truly a craft beer marvel that would twist my arm into believing certainly not all lagers are just the belly burping gas balloons of the brewing industry!