International Snacks and Other?.... 1/9/22

On 1/9/22 I decided to go and check out the new Mom & Pops shop in Thornton. This is a new store that sells geeky products and one of the things that they carry are snacks. Some were anime or Japanese themed while others just left me thinking "who would make something like that." While I was there for the most part the only thing I found that I wanted was to try some of these snacks.

One of the first snacks that caught my eye were the above cookie sandwiches that had Demon Slayer characters on them (Akaza for this one). Each character was a different flavor. Out of all the snacks I got today these were the best tasting of the bunch. They tasted like butter cookies that you can get in tins here in the US around Christmas time.

These Boruto themed snacks were also tasty, but not as sweet as what most people in the US would consider normal for a snack like this. They were actually more like a butter cracker then a cookie. There were three different shapes and all were main characters.

This was my mom's sweet pick for the day. We have had these before in the past. They are similar to the Koala snacks, but not shaped as well and the pictures on them were faded or incomplete. It was actually hard for me to find good ones in the box to take pictures of. These snacks are normally stuffed with some type of flavor and this box was chocolate. I'm not a fan of these. You can find these and the Koala ones in many of the popular chain grocery stores.

When I saw these chips I was intrigued. I have tried other international Lays flavors and normally a bag half this size will cost you around $4 at the Asian markets. I thought why not. When I bought them at the counter my mom told me she was not going to try them and even when we got home I couldn't get her to try them even after showing her me eating them. I would not buy them again. Not because they were gross or anything, but because they just did not catch the attention of my taste buds. They didn't really taste like shell fish of any type, but more tasted like how the ocean smells.

This last bag of chips just fit in the weird section of the snacks that the store had. It didn't really match any of the imported snacks that took up most of the snack space in the store and didn't fit into the common US snacks that they also had for people looking for the familiar. My mom had also wanted a savory snack and decided to get these. I was expecting something like a everything bagel. When you open the bag you get hit in the face with the smell of vinegar and then when you eat them all you get is the taste of vinegar. The vinegar is just overpowering all the other flavors. If they cut back a little you may be able to get the other flavors. My mom ate about 3 of them before she told me to throw them away. These chips had so much vinegar that they were actually painful to eat and the only reason I ate them instead of throwing them away was because of how expensive they were. I really do not recommend that you buy or eat these. I like vinegar chips, but these are like drinking straight vinegar.

After we had shopped at Mom & Pops we then went over the the near by American Furniture Warehouse. This is actually a good example of how you can just find weird snacks in unexpected places. We got snacky (we didn't try the above snacks until we got home that night) and decided to see what their little snack shop had. There we found Japones Nishiyama.

So why are these so weird? First off if you notice the name of the production  company it's de la Rosa which is a Mexican company and they are trying to make a Japanese cocktail nut. To me this is massively intriguing. So first off Nishiyama stands for western mountain when it comes to names (https://www.ancestry.com/name-origin?surname=nishiyama). Also if you look at the imagery on the packaging it reminds you that white people are not the only ones that stereotype other cultures. The peanuts are slit eyed and are wearing what looks like a Japanese style sandal (now that's food for thought when thinking or talking about diversity and equity). When we tried them we found them very tasty and they had the slightest spicy kick aftertaste. There is a hard shell around them that is a little tough to get through and they may not be good for people that have teeth issues.

You can read more about this this Mexico/Japan food trend at: 

https://hazlitt.net/feature/mexico-land-japanese-peanut

https://skdesu.com/en/peanuts-japanese-curiosities-recipe/

https://japantruly.com/japanese-peanuts/