houmous, ranked

welcome to the houmousolympics

Before we get into this, I wrote an article on what happens behind the scenes of every preview of my Edinburgh show ‘clout’ for the comedy website LMAOnaise. It is silly, please have a read and enjoy. Or don’t! That’s okay. Either way, I’d highly recommend subscribing to LMAOnaise for all things live-comedy-based.

Now, onto the important issues.

I’ve not gone a week without houmous since I walked upon this earth so have decided to rank houmi of the UK because this is my substack and I just ate a new one from a leading supermarket that needs trashing. Which supermarket? Let’s just say there’s one less reason to shop there, and it’s the houmous (Morrisons. I’m talking about Morrisons. Morrisons can suck it).

Important note before we start: as a poorly-travelled white woman from England, my houmous enjoyment is both basic and - for anyone hailing from Proper Houmous Countries - almost certainly problematic.

INBWS 2: I made it myself once, it was disgusting and cost £100k.

INBWS 3: Asda, Lidl, Aldi aren’t featured because I haven’t bought houmous from these outlets.

INBWS 4: I have gone with the houmous spelling because it feels like that’s the most common in the UK even though I feel in my heart that the original spelling is probably hummus. I don’t know. I’m just a woman standing in front of a chickpea asking if the spelling of ‘houmous’ is too anglicised.

INBWS 5: My favourite houmous accompaniments are hot buttered toast fingers, carrots or a spoon. As in, I spoon houmous into my mouth like thick soup.

INBWS 6: Rather than do five ‘important notes before we start’, it would have been much easier to simply write an extra paragraph.

HOUMOUS, RANKED.

13. Morrison’s Classic Houmous

This houmous is the inspiration behind this entire endeavour because of its jarring, sickly aftertaste. I can’t shake the feeling they’ve put something weird in it, something evil, even though the ingredients look fine. It’s like when I went open water swimming and the water went in my mouth and tasted like oil, and my skin smelled like oil, and my towel smelled like oil, and the teacher was like ‘there’s no oil Stevie, stop being dramatic’ even though I was clearly covered in oil. I don’t want to be gaslit by my dip, swimming or otherwise. That was a little play on the word ‘dip’ that is too tenuous to properly land.

12. Tesco Caramelised Onion houmous

If you want to eat an onion, go eat an onion.

11. Tesco lemon and coriander houmous

No.

10. Tesco Reduced Fat

In the 00s I only ate reduced fat houmous, because it was the 00s, and when I finally saw enough sense to try normal houmous again I shot seven metres into the air while my tastebuds boned each other. There is no point eating a lesser version of the food you crave, because you’re going to be dead one day. Didn’t expect to write about death in a piece titled ‘houmous, ranked’, but I stand by it. How embarrassing to be on your deathbed having only eaten reduced fat houmous? Mortifying.

9. Sainsbury’s Classic

It’s nothing. Everything about it is bland. It’s houmous for babies (don’t feed houmous to babies) (wait, maybe you can? Don’t take advice from me because I don’t have a baby).

8. Sabra

I wanted to like this so much but it’s not gritty enough! Both physically (too smooth!) and emotionally (where is the realism??). The one-note flatness of taste and texture just doesn’t hit my spot; if this houmous was punctuation it would be ____________ without the little gaps. I can’t formulate a smooth line on substack, but does that make sense? I can describe it more accurately via a noise in the back of my throat, like a sustained honking sound, but that doesn’t help us here.

7. Sabra with stuff on it

Admittedly I find Sabra a little better when they put things on it, probably because of the texture situation mentioned above. Don’t mind the pesto, don’t mind the chickpeas, am not a fan of the tagine because it’s too sweet for me, however I believe it deserves one placing higher than the ________ for effort. It’s like this _____/\____/\ (for the noise fans, that’d be: hoooonk HONK honnnnnk)

6. Marks and Spencer Extra Virgin Olive Oil Houmous

So close, but shockingly heavy. A chore to spend time with. Starts off compellingly yet give it a moment’s breathing space and this dip morphs into someone who won’t shut up about their difficult boss at a party. You understand, you sympathise, but you need something a bit lighter with your crisps.

5 Tesco Classic

If you serve this at a function, nobody will clasp you to their bosom and cry ‘Where’s this from???’ because it tastes exactly as we’ve expected houmous in Britain to taste. It’s absolutely fine. I suppose the positive is that the door swings both ways; nobody’s going to cry ‘Where’s this from???' while clasping you at knifepoint, either.

4 Waitrose Essential Houmous/Organic Houmous

I’ve put these in the same category because they both taste identical. The dip version of people who shop at Waitrose: white, pleasant, always great at a party, and rich (I shop at Morrisons, as discussed).

3 Delphi Houmous

Found predominantly in Food and Wine shops, and to put it frankly: this bangs. Perhaps it’s because the expectation is fairly low; they’re normally sat in warm fridges next to microwaveable burgers and sandwiches made in 2005. Perhaps it’s because I only bought Delphi houmous in my twenties with crap wine en route to even crapper parties, or when looking for something to shove in my face on the nightbus back (or both). Either way, it’s a lovely dip. I once found a black olive version that I still think about, and haven’t seen since. It has become my white whale: I will eat it. I haven’t read Moby Dick but he eats the whale right.

2 Sainsbury’s Organic Houmous

Surprising, considering how much they messed up the classic version, but the organic version is comforting and refreshing, with a pleasing brightness that really cracks on at a picnic. Once I spooned it into a bowl, put some chickpeas on top, and someone thought I’d made it myself. They lost their minds when I said it was Sainsbury’s! It’s possible they were on ketamine at the time!

1 Ramona’s Original Heavenly Houmous

It’s textured, it’s thick, it’s garlicky. It shatters cheap crisps, but stands shoulder to shoulder with posh ones. In fact no, it knights them. Arise, Sir Truffle From The Expensive Deli In The Rapidly Gentrifying Area. Some find it slightly too dry, to which I bellow: HAVE YOU HEARD OF OLIVE OIL? (NB: there is a jalapeno flavoured version and the packaging/colour isn’t sufficiently green to prevent mixups. Personally I love both, but don’t want you to go eating the jalapeno one and become confused as to why I failed to mention that it tastes of jalapenos).

There we are. I cannot believe anyone read down to this bit, but if you did then congratulations!

If you’ve tasted any good houmi please let me know in the comments as I’m really interested in expanding my knowledge.