Cratz メキシカンサルサ＆チキン

From the people who brought you Pocky Sticks, Glico, a more adult version, made for scarfing down with beer, Cratz works a similar paradigm - crunchy baked dough cylinders with flavor coatings. Cratz, though are little hard biscotto (twice-cooked) pellets with intense seasonings, mostly built around salt - and thus demanding a good swig of beer or shochu to wash it all away. The Cratz flavor pellets always come with a few toasted almonds in every package. Pocky Sticks, on the other hand, are delicate wands with dipped in sweet fondants (mainly chocolate) made to indulge the sweet tooth.

For what it's worth, both Cratz and Pocky products are true winners in the junk food sweepstakes, Pocky Sticks actually having become a cultural signifier of Japanese sweets.

Cratz's flagship products come in a few basic flavor combos - Spice Cheese and Pepper Bacon being the year-round favorites. And then there are changing flavors to keep the consumer interested in the product. Hitting the racks recently was Mexican salsa and chicken (メキシカンサルサ＆チキン). Among the ingredients listed to give you that truly Mexican taste are chicken extract powder (can we say bullion cubes?) dextrin (can we say hydrolyzed starch?) salsa seasonings (?) and bacon extract (now we're talkin' Mexican!).

In endless variations the strange and novel concoctions that come out of food labs throughout the world, this one vaguely hits the mark. Granted, the Japanese really don't get Mexican, but a vague hint of jalepeno (most likely chemically created) with the slightest hint of tomato and plenty of salt, brought back vague recollections of some some sort of Mexican bizzarro world of Doritos, Old El Paso Taco Seasoning and Pace Chunky Salsa. But wait! That's what most estadounidenses think about when think of Mexican food! Maybe the Japanese food scientists hit the mark spot on.

And of course, any product that signs on Matsumoto Hitoshi, the comic genius responsible for the films Dianipponjin and Symbol, is definitely cratzin' the zeitgeist.

ドリトス ウィンターチーズ味

Fritolay Japan, like Kit Kat Japan, likes to have it's fun creating novel seasonal variations in order to keep the brand "fresh," even if the ideas are a bit stale. Case in point is Doritos Winter Cheese Flavor (ドリトス　ウィンターチーズ味) chips. Pringles Japan makes its own winter cheese product too, but since Pringles isn't food, it's not in the purview of this blog.

What we got are your basic Dorito corn chips cut into cookie-cutter evergreen tree shapes, dusted with generic cheese powder and a few other taste bud abusing chemicals. From the look of the package, there's a definite holiday theme - snow flakes, a Christmas wreath, a gold star not unlike the stars that front Chinese army issue Mao caps - preferably the big thick winter ones - and a conceptual cheese (white rind for the Japanese proclivity toward soft creamy ripening cheeses and big holes to say Swiss) that's all wintery in look.

The question, one may ask, is what does the pairing of cheese and winter mean? Is winter the time one should be eating cheese? Getting that extra butterfat to keep warm. Is there some tradition yet to become manifest of the Christmas cheese? Perhaps nice gooey cheeses left in Christmas stocking by the fireplace? Or perhaps a particularly ripe and stinky cheese as a replacement for hard black coal to be put in naughty children's sabots? Or perhaps a large wheel of brie as a replacement for the Christmas turkey or ham?

Traditions have changed hugely in the age of advertising. Santa as a fat bearded guy all dress in red can be traced to Coca Cola. Valentine's Day seems to exist only because of the flower and chocolate businesses. So, why not a big cheese to remember the Big Cheese's birth. After all, isn't that what the wise men brought for Him?

カフェインスナック キャラメルマキアート味

In general, even when reaching for a novel snack food, the primary function of eating plays an important role. We eat for nutrition. Corporate food does its best to destroy and then re-add nutritive value to its products. Ultimately though, even with the most frivolous of junk food concoctions, we grab it because we're hungry. What drives one, generally to choose one chip over another, is that we know or think we might enjoy the taste of one over the other.

The concept of food as delivery system has been on corporate and "scientific" minds for several decades now. The affront of all sports drinks (delivering antioxidants, electrolytes and things you didn't know - guess what? you didn't - need), cigarettes and other products that serve as delivery systems of nicotine and beverages that deliver caffeine (the massive misstep of Jolt Cola comes to mind).  Products (I dare not call them foods) that make no pretense of delivering even a hint of nutrition, let alone a pleasurable taste sensation keep rearing their ugly heads in the aisles and refrigerator cases of the konbini.

As a rule of thumb, I usually stay away from these products, that offer neither comfort, nutrition, nor satisfaction. However, every once and a while something so horribly conceived, so against the idea that humans learn from mistakes and there is something real called progress, crawls onto the shelf (the bottom, this time) and the world must be reminded, once again, that the forces of evil are still working day and night to make this world a lesser place.

The snack in question is the カフェインスナック　キャラメルマキアート味 (Caffeine Snack Caramel Machiato Flavor). Deer pellet sized corn puffs, lighter than air (just so one has no illusion that there's anything substantial about these), with a light dusting of mildly acrid coffee powder make for a taste sensation that is truly awful. The snack boasts about 150kg of caffeine per pop. In English on the package it says " Vitalize your day with Caffeine Snack. Caffeine increases your performance, concentration and alertness." A perfect snack for a perfect worktron. More caffeine!  More output! There is N-O-T-H-I-N-G even remotely redeemable about this snack. These hateful things also come in macha latte flavor.  The corporate giant responsible for this is Frito Lay Japan. Nuff said? Frito Lay has managed to demean potato chips, tortilla chips and nearly everything else it has laid its filthy hands on. Basta ya!  

That said, I think I'll grab a cup of coffee and catch what MARISAnoele, who's been posting her video reviews of Japanese junk food on YouTube, has to say about カフェインスナック　キャラメルマキアート味.

ふわ丸

Tohato's Fuwa Maru（ふわ丸）corn snacks are these oddball semi ninja star/fleur de lis shaped thingamabobs, slightly stale feeling in da mouth, but oddly compelling. Especially after a long night of drinking nihonshu. And just as the fleeting feeling of drunkenness will pass, these corn snacks have a very ephemeral quality, almost instantly disappearing at first contact of saliva. In fact, the clever marketers at Tohato are banking on that disappearing act. Promo for the product makes statements to the effect that like a clever ninja, the Fuwa Maru are as quick to disappear as they appear. 

Drawn to this quite insubstantial - even by junk food standards - corn puff by it's admittedly handsome package, a somewhat ukiyo-e-y illustration of a darkly garbed ninja, in the konbini aisles it stood out head and shoulders for eye catchingness. A quick peruse of the Tohato site made me realize that in this big ol' world of packaging and repackaging similar things and calling them different, that the package is where manufacturers make their cases. And Tohato excels in this area of branding.

These are the same folks who market Bokun Habanero chips. A year ago they created a campaign that involved mobile phone multiplayer game playing and a traditional advertising media to determine the winner of the "world's worst war" - Tyrant Habanero Burning Hell Hot or Satan Jorquia Bazooka Deadly Hot. Hmm. You may have thought snack foods were simply about satiating some immediate desires. Looks like the stakes can be pretty high these days.

キャベツ太郎

Here's an odd little snack from the Kado company. Called Kyabetsu Taro, or Taro Cabbage, it has neither taro nor cabbage in its manufacture. These are super-light corn puffs with a thin (and relatively strong) coating of nori and Japanese brown sauce.  The sauce is a somewhat chemically tasting variation of the wonderful sweetened saltly soy concoction that enlivens takoyaki or okonomiyaki. That said, these inexpensive little guys are the sorts of things that contemporary restaurant food technologist chefs are trying to manufacture as haute cuisine.

If these showed up on the tables of El Bulli - and with the appropriate descriptors - they might be considered a revolutionary experiment with flavors, textures, and materials.  The review might posit the daring mix of asian and western ingredients. A texture of near nothingness with a mighty assault of nori and salt. Taking humble corn meal and elevating it to unrecognizable heights. Ah, yes, even Bustos Domenq might weigh in on this one.

All things considered though, they are a mighty addictive snack. Definitely in the realm of flavored popcorn or cheetos. Just look for the green frog cop mascot.  I believe his name is Taro-san.

NV

ポテトチップス ハム＆チーズ味

In the world of Japanese chips, there are three big rulers of the kingdom, Calbee, Koikeya, and Yamayoshi. Yamanoshi dances on the nuttier edge of chip tastes and flavor technology with such things as hamburger, buta karabi, Chinese stir fry, and yakitori flavored chips, so we reached for a bag of their "ham and cheese taste" (ハム＆チーズ味) chips and decided to have a go of it. And by gum, if they didn't taste like ham and cheese and potato chips all rolled into one!  Hold the sandwich, I'll just have chips with my beer.

ポテトチップス こがしバター

Calbee's Kogashi Butter (こがしバター) Potato Chip is an OK variation on umami in snack food. There is a propensity in Japan for variations on snack foods lathered in butter (or butter analogs). At their worst, opening a vacu-sealed package an catching the exploding aroma of rancid chemical butter is enough to make one retch. These chips, though relatively boring, don't drive one reeling toward the toilet in anguish.  These at least are made with real butter powder. Whatever that is. And the chip itself has a nice thickness and crunch.

Again, the big marketing thing here is Hokkaido, the genuine center of quite good potatoes and butter in Japan. And the Hokkaido connection is made with the marketing of these chips. Hiroshima-based Calbee (on the opposite end of Japan from Hokkaido), one of the many postwar giants in the snack food industry is responsible for the manufacture of this treat. They started off in the shrimp chip biz, which they handily command, and have become one of the biggest in the potato chip industry. 

グルメセレクト クリームグラタン カマンベール仕立て

So here's what it looks like. Frente is vertically, horizontally, weblike, and at least in 4 dimensions integrated into useless consumable items. They have their fingers in Koikeya, who is the second largest snack food biz in Japan. Koikeya has a line of potato chips, Oh! Chips. Though better than Lays or any number of US mass market chips, Oh Chips are pretty much a second thought to most idle shoppers in the konbinis. Most budget brands are better than Oh! Chips. And somewhere at the bottom of this food chain, the lonely food technologists take the orders and come up with the Gourmet Selection Cream Gratin Camembert "Tailored" Chip. This mouthful of words is certainly more flavorful than the final product itself - a sad concoction of potato flakes, various artificial flavors, and God-knows-what-else. But along traditional corporate lines, I'm sure no one will take responsibility for this travesty. But if you click on this link - http://frente.co.jp/ir/img/photo_presi.jpg - here's his picture. His name is Takashi Koike and he must bear the ultimate responsibility.

フランスパン工房

The French Bread Atelier chip is an odd little snack from Oyatsu, maker of many an interesting snack food. A very thin baked crouton - or is it? It seems more of a slurry poured into toast-round shapes, cleverly dyed around the edges to produce the illusion of crust, baked crisp. Nonetheless, it has the feel and taste of, for lack of a better descriptor, a French bread chip. There are two versions - one buttered, the other with butter and sugar. The butter/sugar chip (in the yellow plaid package) has a slight rancid butter overtone that finishes with a soupçon of sweetness. A bit like French toast in a chip. For their marketing they have transvestite torch singer (and ex-lover of Yukio Mishima), Akahiro Miwa as the spokesmodel, phoning it in in a series of commercials. Muro-san, as Miwa is also known, cashed in early on transgressiveness and has had a long career being the Milton Berle, or perhaps Flip Wilson, of Japan. Muro-san's chip commercials can be seen at this link - http://www.082.oyatsu.co.jp/product/french/tvcm.html

NV

オー・ザック＜ピリ辛餃子

The O'Zack Gyoza Chip is a somewhat mannerist potato chip that plays with a very basic paradigm of the chip. The pleasure of the snack chip is reductivism in taste sensation. Let's take the potato chip. A good (and popular) one works with the well-rounded blandness of the potato, deep fried to a satisfying, but undemanding crunch. You don't have to masticate too hard to get it down your throat (say, unlike a knäckebrot). Salt, vinegar, nacho cheese, and barbeque flavor are among the classic tastes. And the bigger and more one dimensional the taste is, the more it hits that fast food nerve of satisfaction. The Japanese have added a particular twist to chips with the addition of umami - the taste of savoriness. As the Japanese are not big cheese eaters, the Japanese food technologist looks toward meat and seafoods to create new flavors for chips. There are chips that taste like scallops, beef stew, and more. And that's where the gyoza chip fits in. The O'Zack Gyoza Chip is your pretty standard thin potato crisp. Nothing too special in itself. Ah, but with a bit of sesame oil, a touch of vinegar, and whatever gyoza-analog chemicals you have on hand - and presto - you've added new life to a tired chip. They are a completely addictive chip, in an insidious modern scientific way. A few years ago, Housefoods, who make the chip, were the first Japanese company to get caught importing GM potato flakes from the US. The cutting edge of food technology may be a devil's road lined with gyoza chips. Beware!

NV

とんがりコーン

Tongari Corn chips is Bugles! These crunchy little suckers are the pretty much as uninspired and insipid as the marketing idea (I hate to call it food) that hit the USA in late 60s. In fact, they may not be as tasty as the original turd-like cornucopia known as the Bugle. Light and crisp they are - but that's about all. What Tongari Corn chips have, though, is marketing. They have integrated themselves into the market with commercials featuring J-pop stars du jour and relatively uninspired creative production. But the commercials hit a bullseye on big cultural signifiers. A recent set features J-pop star Tsubasa Imai in situations built around American suburbs, beaches and farmlands. Tsubasa is very recognizable by Tongari's target market. The commercials are set in America - ostensibly because corn is an American grain. The imprimeur of American-ness, though, is cool (even though in this case, it's pretty corny) and there is a national myth of Japan as lagging behind in the world, especially against American success - and that's why the Japanese must work so hard! Healing the wounds of losing WWII by sharing Tongari Corn with down-home American farmers and suburban mall rats, enjoying these simple pleasures in a places of pure leisure - all backgrounded with snippets of hit songs - are what have made these snack popular. It certainly is not the taste. A perfect post-modern tidbit - insubstantiality seasoned with easily digestible lies. They still leave a bit of bad taste in one's mouth.

NV

超暴君ハバネロ

The Bōkun Habanero (Tyrant Habanero) snack from Tohato offers a fine bit of heat on crunchy corrugated potato rings. Good tooth, a building fire the more one consumes, but not exactly the sweet hot bite of habanero that one would expect - more of a one-dimensional arbol or Thai pepper blast. All in all it's an acceptable snack that would go quite well with cold beer. Tohato has posted an amusing webpage of their habanero snacks, including a lo-fi video of the making of Bōkun Habanero. The mascot, Bōkun Habanero, with its distinctive Jack-o-lantern face has sparked a series of popular spinoff characters - Habanero-tan being the most famous - by fan artist Shigatake. So, every time you munch a Bōkun Habanero chip, you're taking a big bite into contemporary Japanese pop culture. Enjoy!

NV

夏ポテト紀州の南高梅

From Calbee, the granddaddy of Japanese potato chip makers (in fact, they claim to have introduced potato chips to Japan in 1975) comes this seasonal treat. These are a ruffle-style potato chip spotted with little bits of ume (梅 - Japanese plum*). The ume are from the Wakayama prefecture in the Kansai region - of course, famous for their ume. Bursts of moderately intense sweet/sour plum aglomerate are followed by the nice round potato flavor of the crisp chip. A good balance of novelty within a classic chip.

NV

*OK, they're actually in the apricot family, but everyone calls them plums.