Sunday Nite Snax Digest

Ok, things slid really hard here at IFD; the summer was replete with delicious fruits for me and I can only imagine that whatever cheese-covered pizza-flavored Dorito IKIW was eating fogged his mind so thoroughly he couldn't think to blog. But hi! It's time to write library science essays and also prepare for hibernation. I had a transcendent snacking experience the other night at the home of three friends in Clinton Hill. I arrived promised two kinds of soup, and received--in addition to undeniable corn chowder and carrot-ginger soups--the greatest variety of snack foods ever showered on me in one sitting. Yesexile dot blogspot dot com, who was also in attendance, proclaimed it one of the best eating experiences of all time.
!
First, after dinner, we ate some chocolate covered sunflower seeds.

The verdict: these are practically drinkable. Maybe it's the oil from the seeds? There's just a thinthin candy coating, an equivalently thin layer of chocolate, and the seed, with maybe just enough of a little pocket of air for crunch. The even balance of coating and chocolate seals the deal, I think. We were delighted.
Then came two courses of CHILI COVERED MANGO--both fresh and packaged.

The fresh ones came from the notorious Red Hook ballfields, I think. Again, a perfect ratio led this snack to victory--spicy, but not too spicy, the mango perfectly ripe. I realize "fruit" can probably be eaten during the state of the union address, but I figure that I'm in the clear on this one, as this particular food can be mounted on a stick and eaten on the street in the manner of a lollipop (snack) corndog (I guess this is a snack?) or candy apple (snack).
Unfortunately, there was not enough to go around, but luckily there were TWO OTHER VARIETIES OF CHILI-COATED MANGO ON HAND!

I opted for the unidentified, lurid red slices proferred from a tied-up plastic bag that came "straight from Mexico," since I already had a bag of TJ's brand on hand at home (yeah). These were saltier, hotter, and generally just kind of weirder than the TJ's ones, which might have something a bit more "Asian" about them, probably the typeface on the bag. They also had a more soft-n-chewy fruit snack-like texture, as opposed to the leathery dried-fruitness of the latter. Verdict: A-ok!
One of our hostesses then took advantage of a lull in conversation to look around the table and query: "Does anyone want some peanuts?" Well, who the fuck was going to say no at that point, not anyone there, so out came some kind of Thai Peanut biz, also from Trader Joe's. For me, this was the snacking low-point of the evening--the bits of dried lemongrass sort of confused me and left a clean, toothpasty feeling around that isn't really what I associate with peanuts.
Oh, then we ate some cucumber, and some people picked at leftover soup in what I'd describe as a post-meal-snacking manner. Some types of crackers were also involved at some point. Seriously, I owe the ladies of Grand Ave. a decisive "good job!" not to mention a "thanks!"

Snyder's Peanut Butter Pretzel Sandwiches

I bought these in the 7-11 on 42nd St. that's turned into a Kwik-e-Mart temporarily as a promotional ploy for the Simpsons movie, where I also lost my credit card but successfully purchased a can of Buzz Cola. When co-blogger IKIW told me he knew that these Snyder's Peanut Butter Pretzel Sandwiches existed and that he, in fact, had eaten them, I nearly bit him in anger. Peanut butter and pretzels are two of my five favorite foods in the world (fyi: spinach, cookies, and hummus are the other three); moreover, I often sandwich peanut butter twixt 2 Snyder's pretzels and consume several as a meal. The world should've e-mailed me when these came into being!
Reader, they disappointed, mainly because the thin layer of peanut butter tastes generic and bland and the pretzels--unsalted. The more I think about it, further, the more I appreciate the action involved in making a real peanut butter pretzel sandwich: smoothing the peanut butter out with the spoon, watching the slight ooze when you lay the upper pretzel atop the spread. Unlike the peanut-butter filled pretzel, this is a snackmeal, not a prepackaged treat. Sadly, I cannot recommend.

Island Jerk Kettle Chips

Might these be the best potato chips on the market? Certainly this is the best new flavor since Zapp's Cajun Dill, since most new flavors are just uninteresting and indistinguishable variations on the existing bases. I almost wish that I were a wine expert, so that I could render the flavor in some pretentious and opaque captions. I'll try: it's like a barbeque chip without being tangy, it has cinnamon without being sweet, is warm without being too peppery, and is not salty or overwhelming. As you can see, I am a bit over-mastered by the subtlety of this chip.

It's important for me to have snacks of this caliber in my life, because I just moved to a "real" apartment and sometimes cook for myself instead of eating out every meal. And, I can't cook. For nothin'. So I basically just buy some healthy ingredients and throw together a legitimate-sounding but completely bland plate of veggies and tofu. It's like eating a salad without dressing, and if someone else tried to serve it to me, I would defiantly starve in preference to scarfing this down. Anyways, after eating my horrible, flavorless cooking, I am definitely in need of snacks--ice cream, donuts, chips: anything! It is obvious that I would not last long as an ascetic.

Being a wine expert would not only help describe these chips, but I dare say these chips are so classy that they would probably go well with a glass of wine--if only I knew how to pick one out. Anyways, highest possible recommendation, and I am looking forward to the other flavors in this "series": Buffalo Bleu, Aztec Chocolate, Royal Indian Curry, etc. (!!)

Delicioso Coco Helado

This is all: for seventy-five cents, an old lady will pack, for you, a paper dixie cup with sugary, coconut-flavored ice, which you do not eat so much as absorb, squeezing the cup gently-gently until the last unmelted chunks demand excessive strategizing, when you ball up the cup and the napkin the old lady probably handed you, as well, and toss them into the garbage. You have probably not broken your stride while consuming your delicioso coco helado; you may have chosen rainbow flavor, in which case the sugar-water that has adhered to your palm and possibly your shirt (and, depending on your strategy for obtaining the precious ice-dregs, the crook of your elbow) will be red and blue instead of translucent white. Catch the flava! This is What Summer Means to IFD: the sugar-shock, the mess, the unambiguous pleasure one feels when one can suddenly, momentarily lose all self-consciousness and shift from "walking down the street and pondering great ideas or laundry" mode into "Oh hey, it's summer, we live in New York and right now, while walking down the street, we are enjoying a completely ridiculous but delectable and definitively for-the-people snack." This, friends, is why IFD will never leave this city.

English Snacks

Last week, I went to England with my parents. More precisely, I imposed myself on what was probably intended as their romantic get-away. This was psychologically possible to me because the idea of anyone's parents flying somewhere to have sex is inadmissible--so, I prefer to think I wasn't imposing on anything. The highlights of this trip were obviously the snacks and the $300 I spent on books. Lowlights were the unattractive people of the United Kingdom, and my constantly belittling my parents.


The English are a chocolate loving people. In America, skittles, starburst, twizzlers, mamba, and other fruity candies are staples of the delicious candy rainbow--but I think the English have only grudgingly accepted fruity candies (see below: chewits). I am not a chocolate connoisseur, so all the Cadbury, Yorkie, etc. was too much for me--my chocolate has to be mediated by fruit or nuts or (in this case) toffee. Ultimately, this candy was a bit cheap and flaky for me: inferior to Butterfinger in every way, and not having enough toffee to set it apart from other candy bars. I think this was just another excuse for chocolate.



In May 2007 Masterfoods announced that Mars Bars, along with many of their other products such as Snickers, Maltesers, Minstrels and Twix would no longer be suitable for vegetarians because of the introduction of rennet, a chemical sourced from calves’ stomachs used in the production of whey. Masterfoods confirmed that many other products such as Easter eggs and ice cream would also be affected. The decision was condemned by several groups, with the Vegetarian Society stating that "at a time when more and more consumers are concerned about the provenance of their food, Masterfoods’ decision to use non-vegetarian whey is a backward step". However, Masterfoods later abandoned these plans, stating that it became "very clear, very quickly" that it had made a mistake.

Mars Bars are not as good as Snickers.



This was like a really crappy Starburst with some pretensions to creaminess. Also, there is only one flavor per pack (strawberry, black currant!! ew!) except for the "fruit salad" pack---what maniac buys candy with "salad" in the name? Fuck it. Anyways, these were also cheap and subject to suspicions of tampering--my pack was open already when I bought it. I guess they didn't learn anything from 9/11, the British. Their dinosaur logo also was not as fun as was probably intended.



On a scale of sugar-content, these cookies probably rank just after Pixie Stix. These cream sandwich cookies make Oreos look like Brussels sprouts. The "bread" part of the sandwich is pure golden sugar cookie, and the creamy center is practically glowing neon with the power of sweetness. These made my teeth hurt, but Mr. Fox, I salute you.




The British call potato chips "crisps" because they already ruined the word "chips" by using it for french fries. Now, semantically, "crisps" in America normally designate some new-age-y snack that is not fried. Suffice to say, their potato chip culture is twenty-five to thirty years behind ours. My parents tried to have some conversation with me about salt & vinegar chips that was kind of mind-numbing. Walker's is basically their version of Lay's. These were extremely vinegary but kind of cheap (are you seeing a motif here? PREMIUM SNAX FOREVER). The lesson I learned about vinegar on this trip is that you want to pour vinegar on french fries. (The English also want to put mayonnaise on fries/everything, but that is wrong.)



Aside from toffee, the English are also more advanced than our country in the Custard industry. I had a custard danish at a coffee shop (est. 1646!!) in Oxford that was great (although the iced coffee was horrible). I would like to get these in America, but Derek said the closest I would probably get was something like a Boston Creme donut--can that be? I feel uncomfortable even writing "cream" in that way...

Ok, I am moving to a new neighborhood soon: new bodegas, new snax. I also am going to write a review of the Derrida-approved banana bread at Film Forum (since I am there every day).

Term paper snax

Oh man, I am getting destroyed in the "slow bicycle race" that is posting to this blog. How embarrassing! Anyway, here's a list of snax (as far as I can recall) that I've eaten over the last week, which I have devoted pretty much entirely to writing a term paper (the copious footnotes of which I'm procrastinating on). Bear in mind that I haven't eaten like, boxes and boxes of candy and bags upon bags of snax--I like to have a wide variety on hand, you know the drill. I find that chewing aids concentration like nothing else.
1. Panda Licorice

Best-tasting licorice; convenient size contributes to eminent chewability. If there's better licorice than Panda, I don't really wanna know about it.
2. Nabisco Unsalted Tops Saltines

I tend to incorporate these into meals, so maybe they're not properly snax? Either way, these things have sustained me through longer periods of my life than I'd care to admit; every cracker has the potential either to be snapped firmly and crunched if you're feeling resolute, or turn into goo in instants if you don't swallow it soon enough while pondering a key point. Is that TMI?
3. Orange-flavored dried cranberries (end of a bag of Trader Joe's variety; start of a bag of Ocean Spray variety).
Trader Joe's=raging. Perfect balance of orange flavor with cranberry, not too sweet.
Ocean Spray=gross. Whatever this flavor is, it seems inappropriate in a dried fruit snack, although I would consider eating it as a popsicle.
4. Haribo Fruity Pasta

One of a select few vegetarian Haribo candies, Fruity Pasta comes in three colors evocative of the Italian flag (yellow is lemon, green I have no idea, red is probably cherry), all covered in the same granular sour coating that gives Sour Power Straws their potency. Do not confuse with the thin, fun strands of "Sour Pasta;" Fruity Pasta's rectangular chunks take ages to eat and get irrevocably stuck in your teeth. They're definitely a snack best eaten on one's own. Actually, you probably shouldn't eat them ever, since they're totes gross, but they are undoubtedly my favorite fruit-flavored candy.
5. Harry's Sesame Spelt Sticks
These taste pretty good and crunch really nicely, which is a bummer since they are made out of spelt, sesame, and tamari (ie. they cost a million dollars and have about 120398 calories/crumb). These are definitively snax for the upper-crust hippie, and even have the slightly lumpish shape and sad light-brown color of Health Food.

Denise Ripe Plantain Chips with Garlic

I can't find a picture of the package of these particular plantain chips, but fyi, it's lime-green, with a comics-serif type font and a cartoony picture of a garlic bulb, with one clove of garlic popping out. What this picture attempts to say is this: this clove of garlic=your chips. I've accidentally eaten large chunks of garlic that I thought were ginger, or I dunno, absent-mindedly picked up whatever to nibble on while trying to figure out what cooking move to make next only to realize, to my shock, that I'd chomped a straight-up piece of garlic. These chips, my friend, approximate that experience.
I love plantain chips; I've been craving them for months, and in Ben's and my mid-movie snack run to the nearest bodega, I confused the Denise chips for whatever brand has a dancing banana, which is subtly flavored with garlic. The plantain chip texture might be my favorite--the snap resolute, the flavor distinct and vaguely reminiscent of a vegetable, the color brilliant. I'd been craving some for a while; Ben can attest that a draft for a post on everyone's favorite brand of plain plantain chips, Chifles ("say it: CHIEF-LES"), has lingered behind the IFD scenes for a few days now.
These Denise chips come in longer and more eccentric strips than Chifles which, like the Lay's brand of plantain chips, Isleno (which whatever fuck that) are cut in neat but pleasantly thick rounds. I appreciate this diversion. I also appreciate that these chips have ensured my protection from vampires and interaction with anyone I don't already for the next week and a half, because I have homework to do and little desire to join the legions of the undead. SO. MUCH. GARLIC.