Snack foods

The Onion runs regular articles on pop culture and one this week is about some of the odd flavors of Pringles potato chips sold in Asia. Ironically, the five flavors of Pringles that they taste tested would not be considered Asian flavors at all: French Consommé, Spanish Salsa Pizza, Bruschetta, Smoky Bacon, Cheese & Bacon.

The article reminded me of the many strange snacks that I’ve either seen or sampled here. Lays and Pringles are two popular brands and they offer a lot of odd flavors of potato chips, but some of the Chinese snacks are even more strange. My students eat a lot of junk food and occassionally I sample some of them. Meat flavored snacks are probably the most common. Last week I ate a potato chip and then looked at the bag. I could read the Chinese characters for “Japan beef” so it must have been Kobe beef-flavored. A while ago I bought a bag of treats to give to my students. I though they were individually wrapped hard candies, but they turned out to be little pieces of beef jerky. They were gone pretty quickly. This week a girl was sharing a box of little packaged snacks with the class and she gave me one. It was a “curry beef biscuit.” I haven’t tried it yet, it’s still sitting in my drawer.

Other than meat flavored chips, there’s seafood (shrimp), vegetable (cucumber and tomato), and even fruit flavored chips (strawberry), and dessert flavors ("chocolate pillows" filled with chocolate syrup). Some of the best snacks I’ve had can also be found at home, such as sweet potato chips, vegetable chips, and boiled chestnuts, pumpkin seeds, and dried fruits.

Some of the strangest snacks are the various animal parts sold in the snack aisle. You can get everything from duck necks and tongues to chicken feet, or simply a whole roasted chicken in a bag. I sat near a guy on a train once who ate a pre-cooked and packaged chicken in a bag, wiped his greasy fingers off on the seat upholstery, and then downed a little bottle of the clear Chinese alcohol called baiju. Now that’s a Chinese snack!