It’s been over a month now since Pokémon Go finally revealed the hidden network of acquirable pocket monsters lurking around the nooks and crannies of our cities, parks and coastlines. In that vein, it’s worth remembering that the search for snacks is a bit similar in spirit, especially when the result leads to a miniature bag of Irish crisps emblazoned with a snaggletoothed, cherry-red gremlin. Sourced from the somewhat inexplicable UK-themed section of a local Key Food, these chips are indeed monstrous, blasted with a bracing pickled flavor that makes plain old salt and vinegar seem mild by comparison. This falls in line with the apparent British propensity for strongly flavored snacks, a taste which has spawned everything from Prawn Cocktail to Ham & Mustard and Marmite flavors. Indulging in a bit of speculation, I’d like to imagine these as the modern equivalent to the pickled onions that sat astride the voluminous Ploughman’s Lunch, or the raw onions often put out for snacking alongside a pint of lager at an old-fashioned pub. I also love this packaging, which confirms that for an outsider, this snack has it all: a bizarrely decorated bag, small enough for the intense contents to not out-stay their welcome, with a possibly interesting back-story. The Irish may feel differently, however, as a comment on this well-informed ranking of Irish crisps doesn’t even mention Meanies, with a commenter actually referring to them as a “poor man’s Monster Munch.” Munch may be the original, on the market since the mid '70s, with a similar stable of strong flavors (Smoky Bacon, Roast Beef, and Saucy Cheese & Onion, in addition to the aforementioned Pickled Onion). I still vastly prefer this packaging, with its genuinely ghastly hellion (somehow even surlier than this similar Mega Meanies spokesdemon) displayed on a field of green, to the goofy, faux-Muppet mascot of Munch. As for the taste comparison, only time will tell, and I’ll certainly be on the lookout for Munch in the future, even if it may be awhile before I have my next Pickled Onion Crisps craving.
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A good, if not exactly terroir-oriented, way to gauge the tastes of a place is through its sodas. These will generally provide you with a shorthand barometer of the national sweet tooth, and also a concise sampling of some of the fruits, flavors and spices favored by locals. Looking at soda, in the case of formerly colonized countries, can also be an inroad toward surmising the influence of the colonizer(s) upon those tastes. The most extensive example of this may be Vimto, the king of the colonial sodas, a nominally British beverage that now enjoys far greater popularity in Asia, the Caribbean and especially the Middle East. A similar situation occurs with the lingering specter of Peardrax, a drink which, although now discontinued in its country of origin, continues to enjoy robust popularity in Trinidad & Tobago, where it’s taken on status as a sort of national soda, a status it shares with its autumnal apple partner Cydrax. All this with names that sound like under-the-sink cleaning agents. Caribbean sodas often grow out of a prior traditional of fermented alcoholic and non-alcoholic brews, skewing toward approximations of juices from fruits (or roots) which, if not always native, at least have some entrenched history in the area. Pear and apple ciders, on the other hand, innately seem like cold-weather concoctions, which would explain why the 'Drax favored at Christmas, and enjoys a likely-related popularity as a toasting drink on special occasions. Both draxes were originally products of the now-defunct Whiteway Orchards (a fact still noted on the label), based in the bucolic southwestern English town of Whimple (a pleasant pastoral picture of the former orchard can be found here). As for the taste, despite the long distance from Devonshire, Peardrax definitely remains true to its cidery roots, with a slightly sweet flavor that’s redolent of hard cider stripped of alcohol. I’m not entirely clear, however, why the drink description on the bottle bears French text.
This one was an impulse buy, purchased mostly thanks to its magnificent box, which I snapped up while trawling the aisles of a local Vietnamese supermarket. Based on the name I wasn’t expecting much, and was therefore delighted to discover the Vietnamese equivalent to halvah, a treasure trove of sweet, dusty dessert cubes, with a nice mung bean funk replacing the usually nutty twang. The exceedingly handsome package opens to reveal a tray of twelve separately packed containers (I notice that packaging within packaging seems to be a trend in Asian snacking, although I guess it is in American as well). As the box notes, this confection is a specialty of Hai Duong province, located in North Vietnam’s Red River Delta, where it’s apparently served in two distinct forms. I’m guessing this one is the dry version; the only real problem with these is actually how easily they crumble into dust, a condition that’s visible in the second picture below, which shows the little treats in its unpackaged form. The name Bánh Đậu Xanh literally translates to “mung bean cakes,” and the interplay between the beans and the rich coconut that provides the necessary fat content is pretty fantastic. Also not that hard to prepare on your own, if this recipe is to be believed.
Putting off a long-gestating India-dex post to write this, but I'm glad to report that I've finally found the heir to Vegetable Thins and the Holy Grail of not-too-sweet Asian bagged snacks. As you can see by the glasses, this bean...is one smart bean. He fits neatly into a golden-hued packaging that recalls an illustrated backdrop from a children's television program. The puffs themselves, only slightly air-leavened and with just the right amount of crunch, theoretically approximate the taste of edamame, with a subtle MSG undertone that's addictive but not overwhelming. Purchased for me as a souvenir from Little Tokyo, which means that my only problem now is figuring out where to pick up more of these. Not much other information appears to be available online, although they do have a website, hinting at a wide variety of other versions, which is notably fantastic despite being entirely in Japanese.
I’ve always had a special fondness for Vegetable Thins, a snack that’s long occupied the second string of Nabisco’s cracker team, paired with perennial misfits like Chicken In A Biskit, Better Cheddars, Sociables, and the VT's polar opposite, the now-defunct Bacon Thins. Even in my early years, when I refused to touch a single earth-hatched tuber or legume, the taste of freeze-dried vegetable scraps preserved inside vinegary, MSG-laden crackers was alluring. even more so for the way the snack appeared in approximated vegetable shapes, all of them tasting exactly the same. Things have changed now in Nabisco Land, and while I do enjoy the fact that the above Wiki cites separate varieties clocking in at 40% and 44% less fat, respectively, it's likely that the VT will never be the same.
Nostalgia for this bygone taste may explain my tolerance for these Veggie Sticks, which are in many ways pretty foul. Purchased at Elmhurst Filipino grocery Sariling Atin, their packaging promises a bountiful field of baton-shaped crackers, sprouting from the soil like the Emerald City skyline. Instead the contents resemble a bizarro Cheez Doodle, with the cheese substitute swapped out for a sweet vegetal taste, dusted with a substance that's gently redolent of mulched grass clippings. Yes these are formed from a base of rice, not corn, but when you get down to the core mechanics of food-grade styrofoam snacks it appears that the grain of origin doesn’t matter too much. If nothing else, the bag at least blends nicely into the surrounding landscape. I’ve at this point come to accept the fact that, despite numerous attempts to get on their wavelength, the pleasures of certain snacks will always remain elusive to my palate. One particular weak spot seems to lie in the cold-served, offal-based bar foods of Southeast Asia. I’ve already twice failed to comprehend the complexities of soondae, the Korean sausage stuffed with pig’s blood and cellophane noodles. This may have had something to do with the circumstances of consumption; I nibbled on it once amid a spread of far-more-palatable dishes at a group dinner, then again by my lonesome with a beer at home, my vegetarian companion sneering with disgust at idea of supermarket-purchased intestines invading our kitchen. Hoping for a better atmosphere, I brought this package of Nem Chua, purchased on impulse from the counter at Tan Tin Hung to a rental house upstate, hoping the convivial atmosphere therein would inspire at least some drunken inquisitiveness. Unfortunately, the sight of these candy pink meat squares, looking like misbegotten Starbursts topped with bird’s eye chili slices, did not strike a chord with anyone. I ate one, sort of admiring the souse-like snap of this portable meat cube, individually wrapped in plastic within the confines of its cellophane package. I also appreciated the appearance of vermicelli strands, hidden inside like subterranean grubs, which added some additional textural interest. Beyond this, however, I can’t express much love for this vinegar-cured pork delicacy, although I’d be willing to try the dominant variety of this snack, which seems to come in a less-processed-looking roll form, under more preferable circumstances. Three days after my first fress, still trying to convince myself that I’d finish off the package, I found that the nem chua, which did not seem to require refrigeration (I refrigerated them anyway, for the sake of safety) had developed a few scattered mold spots and acquired an even more intense sour taste. Not wanting to risk food poisoning over a snack I wasn’t crazy about in the first place, I tossed the rest of the batch, marking this one down as another failure. The Bánh da lợn, which I purchased from the grocery counter on the same trip, remains resilient in my fridge, also waiting for its time in the sun. Its name translates to “pig skin cake,” a fitting bit of serendipity if nothing else.
Far be it from me to criticize another country’s snacking habits, but I can’t seem to get on board with the apparent Korean preference for sickly sweet, HFCS-addled, between-meals comestibles. The worst part is that most of these snacks demonstrate an exquisite deftness for balancing salt and spice, which then gets subsequently washed away by the cloying tide of sugar. The same holds true on this otherwise alluring snack from Japanese/Korean mega-conglomerate Lotte. Too bad, since this is a stellar bit of packaging that swaddles a pretty reasonable governing concept; I, like many others, spent much of my teenage years partying with large bags of aggressively seasoned snacks. Back then we had Bugles, which seem like the dominant inspiration for Teenager’s Party Time, right down to the general “compressed corn dust” taste found beneath the aforementioned overwhelming sweetness. Online sources tell me these are barbecue flavored, although I can’t detect any real kinship with the prevalent American version of this style. Dominated by a syrupy finish, these mostly remind me of Golden Grahams. Let's not forget, however, two other recently purchased Korean snacks; the one just below, with its daring, fantastically designed co-opting of American branded content, also seems more than a little similar in presentation.
While the unphotogenic nature of this odd candy may seem to have something to do with the waxy translucence of the packaging, I can report that, even unwrapped, it does pretty much look like a turd that’s been hung out to dry in the sun. The same can be said for the churchkhela’s fresher cousin, although I imagine these confections fare better when encased within the traditional layer of thickened fruit juice, instead of one formed from intractable high fructose corn syrup. The processed imitation, despite its “aphrodisiac” claims, seems more silly than anything, encased in a soft plasticine aspic that demands knife-cutting rather than direct biting chomping. The taste is passable, with some hints of grape molasses (technically grape must, according to the ingredients list) and large walnut chunks helping to combat the otherwise-overwhelming artificiality on display. As for real stuff, despite churchkhela’s popularity beyond its native Georgia, into Turkey (the origin point of this snack), Armenia, Russia and beyond, I have not seen it anywhere in NYC. The Turkish on the packaging describes a “grape walnut dried sausage,” (despite what the Engish/German/French translations read); I imagine the fresh version’s range is limited to places where grapes grow in abundance, their byproducts funneled into mass sweet treat diversions. Georgia is wine country, and so blessed with these sort of resources, necessitating similar overflow desserts like pelamushi, a beautiful, pretty delicious grape pudding. Churchkhela can’t compete in the looks department (at its best it seems to resemble a poorly made candle or a fire cracker), but I imagine that, consumed on some remote Georgian vineyard in the fading evening light, it can make for a pretty magical experience in its own right.
There’s something oddly evocative about the packaging for Marukawa’s fruit gums, with their neat little square boxes (containing three four small gums apiece) drawing aesthetic parallels to some bygone style of design (taxonomic charts? '60s-era juice bars? frozen juice concentrate packages?) that I can’t exactly put my finger on. The gum itself is equivalently mysterious, offering an ephemeral burst of faint, Chiclet-like fruit flavor, then evaporating into nothingness. The only issue with this is that, these being gum pellets, you’re left with the sallow, flavorless grub in your mouth as a reminder of the candy’s lingering connection to the cruel corporeal world. Another key reminder; the main breadwinner of the Marukawa line is not these ethereal little confections, but this garish product, which resorts to the allure of acrobatic musician bears and a free tattoo sticker to lure in a (likely juvenile?) audience. I imagine the taste is also a lot less subtle.
For every modern food craze, there’s some sort of historical antecedent. So while slurping down almond milk seems like a decidedly contemporary (and possibly environmentally deleterious trend, the practice actually has a long history, stretching back to the dark, dairy-deprived days of the Middle Ages and beyond. In a time before refrigeration and canning, when you needed to own a cow or live in close proximity to one to enjoy the benefits of lactose, plant milks served more than a niche purpose.
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The coded language of snacks, sandwiches and seasonings, in NYC and beyond.
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