i love it when people surprise

News of my penchant for foreign snacks is spreading from friends of colleagues to people with whom I make small talk. Today someone I see in the gym now and then brought me souvenir snacks from Japan. She was teeming with excitement and I was trying to appear grateful, but the bag looked an awful lot like the mixed bean cracker mixes I can buy at any Asian store here for about $2.

"You have to open it!" she said. "You need to try them right now."

I sensed this was going in a bad place. I opened the bag and looked inside.

"No, try them!" she practically yelled. "I can't wait to see your face."

Seriously, this was a lot of pressure.

I pulled out a small handful, took a look, then put them in my mouth. Peanut covered in flour, green pea, horse bean with sesame seeds. They tasted a lot like mixed bean crackers. My gym friend was practically bursting with excitement.

So I took another handful. I had almost put it in my mouth when I noticed that this handful did not quite look like the others. It had little dried fish.


Mmmm... rice covered peanut, green pea, sugar covered horse bean, dried anchovy. Dried anchovy?!?

And I had assumed that my gym friend was lame. I love it when people surprise.

i'm back and i may not feel well soon

Given that I aspire to a vegan diet (I haven't quite gotten there yet), I'm always looking for alternative sources of protein. I love going to Chinatown to scope out new tofu creations, some of which have been a bigger hit than others.

Tonight for dinner I went all crazytown and cooked this sucker.


Yes, soybean made chicken, in the shape of a chicken--I guess. I was a bit suspicious of this, not just because none of the ingredients sounded tasty, but also because the cooking instructions were "microwave 3-5 minutes."

So I microwaved it for 4 minutes. Then I decided I should add something that people normally eat with chicken. Of course, I don't really know what that is, since I haven't eaten chicken in well over a decade. But I had a sneaking suspicion that green peas might work. After all, the people I know who eat lots of chicken are pretty white and peas are a white person food. Or so my reasoning went.

So here it is on a plate with some peas. (BTW, you're seeing it without sauce, since I wanted to taste it first to decide what sauce would go best--and taking a bite would ruin the integrity of the "chicken" for the shot. I ended up adding soy sauce.) How's this for a white bread meal?


You know what? I don't know if it tasted remotely like chicken, but it was delicious. Really.

But here's where the story goes wrong: I finished the whole plate and then decided to go back and read the package again. I read the amount of everything per serving and it didn't sound so bad: 7g of fat, 334 mg of sodium, 6g of protein, 1.4g of sugar. But then I went back and read this: 20 servings per container. So I just ate a plate that had 140g of fat, 6,680mg of sodium, 120g of protein and 28g of sugar.

Is this even possible?! It seems to me that if I really just ate 120g of protein I'd feel a bit more full than I feel right now. And I don't even want to think about what that somewhat excessive amount of fat and sodium might be doing to my organs right now.

This has the potential to be much worse than the misguided Dairy Queen visit. Help.

mmmmm... stale tarts

I think news about my obsession with foreign snacks may be spreading a bit too widely. A colleague's friend (who I have never met) went to the Philippines and brought me back these snacks. Don't get me wrong; I was pretty happy that the tarts ended up in my hands. But I have a sneaking suspicion that people are beginning to describe me the way I talk about I-like-getting-gas colleague sometimes.

At any rate, check out the tarts.

The best before date on the package is the end of July. Now, I don't eat a lot of packaged baked goods, so I may be missing something, but that seems like a long way away. The ingredients are even more interesting though:

I had to do some research before sampling these. Langka is just another word for jack fruit (which, incidentally, is a diuretic when eaten in large amounts). Coconut sports I'm still a bit fuzzy on (probably mostly because of the image in my head when I say or write it), but the mention of "jella powder" is what truly perplexes (is it just Jello powder with an Asian twist?). Somewhat reassuring is the fact that the manufacturer is a member of the Sweet & Delicacies Association of Pampanga.

I had a few of these guys this morning and I have to admit that, while somewhat stale in texture, they were extremely tasty. They definitely beat the pants off of Pico Buzzy.

Rainy

snacks requiring an iron stomach

OK, so I've been known to eat pretty much anything on a dare, and also for my love of foreign snacks. But somehow I just can't bring myself to take a bite of these ones, brought back for me from Trinidad.


Pepper mango and pepper plums. As you can see, they're a weird shade of red-brown. As you can't see, they smell rank. I haven't even opened the packages and the smell makes me retch. I'm sure this situation is amusing Sunny immensely because I sort of feel like I have to eat them. Suggestions as to how to train myself for this are welcome.

In other news, I've been busy taking a crazy long course this weekend and I'm off on vacation tomorrow. This is a darn good thing because the snow is making me squirly. The vacation has potential to be fascinating so I'll be posting here and there on the road. I think I'll be reading comments but I'm not sure I'll be able to comment back. Make sure to be super controversial and offensive where possible so that you leave me steaming. I love that.

RainyBow

more snacks

As you may have gathered from at least one previous post, I love snack food from other countries. Actually, I'm a source of much amusement, because when I get a new snack I don't just love it, I obsess over it. I keep it on my desk and admire it, then I photograph it, then, finally, I eat it. Throughout this long process, I talk about it. Endlessly.

Over the Christmas break, a friend went on some crazy central American cruise and was kind enough to indulge my little habit. Here are the two gems she brought back for me.

The white cigar-looking item is a rollito de coco, a delicious combination of coconut and sugar. Mmmmmm. The only alarming feature about this item: one of its ingredients was "vanilla raising." I'm hoping that's a bad translation of "extract."

The Pico Buzzy with the crazy face was a bit more of an experience. It looked like Jell-O crystals (which were a staple in my diet when I was like six). And it boasted a "tamarind flavor." Now, I like tamarind as much as the next person, but I've never really wanted to sample tamarind Jell-O crystals. I'm guessing that Kraft Foods' focus groups have overwhelmingly agreed.

I went all the way with the Pico Buzzy and poured a whack down my throat. It was like scarfing down a mixture of sugar and salt. And some artificial red stuff. I wonder if it's a big seller in some central American country.

RainyBow

brain and artery death

OK, I have to give full disclosure before continuing this post. Here's what you need to know:

1. I hate despise television. I see very little merit in anything that's aired on the beast, except as a mindless diversion when you're ill. I'll admit to watching a few well-written shows on DVD: Arrested Development and Entourage come to mind. I know people who organize their entire schedule around the boob tube (including my sister, who will record one show while watching another), and it frightens me to no end. No wonder America is hurtling into recession. Read a book. Have a real conversation. Try something new. Take a walk. Seriously.

2. I hate TV celebrities, especially talk show hosts like Oprah and Rachel Ray. My friends are infinitely more interesting and they're not half as self-centred.

3. I've been a vegetarian for over 15 years. I occasionally eat seafood because I find it impossible not to in my world, but I do my best to avoid eggs and dairy. I've probably inadvertently eaten bits of meat or meat broth in something over the past 15 years, but I can't imagine really eating meat again.

Now that you've got the full facts, let's go onto the real post...

I haven't been feeling well over the last couple of days. Yesterday morning, lying on my couch, I decided to try crapola TV as a distraction from the pain of my throbbing head. I stumbled on Rachel Ray, who was talking about art. It was better than the other crap I had just flipped over, and, out of sheer laziness, I didn't change the channel.

After a commercial break, Rachel Ray came back with a cooking portion of the show. The big dish of the day was chili cheese fries. I've never had anything like it, but the dish seemed to be comprised of three layers:
- homemade fries
- chopped turkey (but I can't tell the difference between different meats so it may have been something else)
- a mixture of cheddar cheese, chicken stock, milk, and beer

She kept going on and on about how this was a great meal on its own and how much her husband loves it. She plated it and oohed and aahed over it, and the audience sure clapped a lot. I was thankful that I didn't have to watch anyone actually take a bite. I was already feeling more than a bit nauseous.

Do people really eat like this? And if this is a full meal, is it suddenly OK to replace fruits and vegetables with saturated fats? While watching this, I just kept thinking about how much money you'd have to give me so that I'd take even a bite of these chili cheese fries. I don't think I landed on an actual number, but it was a lot.

RainyBow

sugorama

I love sampling snacks from other cultures. Not only is the yummy factor high, but snacks are usually indicative of their place of origin, which is attractive to a geek like me. For example, contrast British high tea with Chinese dim sum. So similar and yet just not.

Some of the oddest snacks I've ever had were in Mongolia. Fermented mare's milk and fermented bean curd snacks were everywhere. The fermented part comes from the lack of refrigeration in huge parts of the country, but when your snacks taste like rot I'm not sure that says good things about your nation.

Much as I try, I can't get everywhere, so I always beg friends to bring me back snacks from their travels. Despite the stairs incident, the man vomiting on the edge of death on the plane, and the earthquake, Sunny still managed to bring me back some good stuff from her disastrous trip to the Caribbean. Witness the two examples below.

Sugar cakes and guava cheese. I admired them for well over a week, letting the excitement about tasting them build. As you can probably see for yourself, the sugar cake looked like a muffin, and the guava cheese was the farthest thing from cheese, looking and feeling more like a gargantuan gummy bear squashed flat by a steamroller.

Even more perplexing though was the taste. Sugar led the ingredient list on each one, so I had prepared myself for sweet, but dang! After eating half of the sugar cake, I was talking at ridiculous speeds, causing people at work to stare at me kinda funny.

So what's the deal with this emphasis on sugar anyway? Part of me thinks this is a technique for staying active in high temperatures. Perhaps I should test this theory by eating some of this stuff, then partaking in some more hot yoga. Do you think the sugar in my sweat would pass the crazy people's scent-free sniff test?

things that are not yummy

Chocolate ice cream with chipotle chillies. Chocolate-covered applewood smoked bacon. Chocolate-covered kalamata olives.

Now, I like chocolate and ice cream as much as the next girl, but sometimes a line must be drawn.

RainyBow

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SunnyShine note: Yuck. Ok, I might be willing to try the bacon one. I love bacon.

my arteries have elected a union rep and are making picket signs

I just ate a large Dairy Queen Reese's Peanut Butter Cups Blizzard.

Afterwards, I looked at the nutrition facts. 1,080 calories and 46 grams of fat.

I weigh 115 pounds. I need to lie down and hope for the best.

RainyBow

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RainyBow update (hours later): Went for a long run. Arteries clearly made alliance with stomach and esophagus as I tasted the blizzard a second time.

things i think about when i'm not sleeping

Still not sleeping. Sunny's trainer told her never to eat past 7pm. I wonder if that rule gets cancelled out if you're up past midnight. I've eaten more in the last two hours than I think I ate all day yesterday.

Scrounging for more snacks, I found an old gum pack that I was saving from my trip to South Africa earlier this year. I'm fascinated by what other cultures consider good snack food, both in taste and in packaging. I took some photos of this guy so now I can finally throw out the pack.

This gum claims to be "sugarfree" on the front.

But then you look at the back....

In case you can't read this, the seventh ingredient is hydrogenated glucose syrup. The last time I checked, glucose was just another word for sugar. Hmmm.

Also see the warning at the end of the ingredient list: "Excessive consumption may produce laxative effects." This gum just gets better and better.

I bought another pack of gum in S.A. that was "musk" flavoured. I always thought musk was a smell; I think my dad wore some kind of musk cologne when I was a kid. But apparently in another part of the world musk looks pinky orange and tastes like soap.

I'm hoping to fall asleep soon.

RainyBow

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RainyBow update: I woke up this morning somewhat groggy and dragged myself into the kitchen. The fridge door was wide open. Blog action day indeed.