Much like wine, I’ve never met a crunchy savoury snack I didn’t like so when some chip-loving friends in Australia (hi Rita and Dee!) suggested we try a bunch and report back, as you can imagine the arm that wasn’t holding my glass required a lot of twisting. There are several familiar snacks here (Pringles immediately come to mind) but there are also a whole bunch of new and potentially delicious treats to discover. I’m not expecting to meet the Swiss equivalent of the mighty cheese Twistie, but I’d happily settle for a Burger Ring or a Toob.

We were given the heads up prior to moving here that the range of foods – particularly herbs, spices and sauces – is quite different from what we’re used to. The Asian food influence we have in Australia is definitely (and sadly) lacking, and we have indeed noticed a difference in the availability of cooking staples. However, one spice that is available in abundance is paprika; even the local convenience store has about half a dozen different types. So when choosing our first chip to test run it seemed fitting that we’d go with a paprika flavoured number.

Surprisingly, we found these to be super sweet; they had a slight smoky flavour at times but our general impression was that there wasn’t enough salty goodness balancing the sugar hit out. I am also assuming that the alarming orange hue was due to the paprika (although I am aware that they are chips, for god’s sake, so weird dusty orange colouring is par for the course)(um, also cheese Twisties are hardly a colour occurring in nature). They won’t make a repeat performance in our household but that did not stop us finishing them, of course.

(The Brot Chips Knoblauch also pictured are garlic bagel chips and exactly the same as all other garlic bagel chips I have eaten elsewhere, which is to say crispy and crunchy and delicious.)