Yan Yan, a Dadaist Snack

Hello, snacky babies. Today I will be discussing the oddity that is Yan Yan. Packaged in a flimsy cardboard tube (seen at left) with a plastic divider inside, Yan Yan consists of sweet cracker sticks and a vanilla-style sauce for your dipping pleasure.

The sticks are about 3" long and 1/4" in diameter, and you get around 16 in your package. The crisp sticks have a minimal sweetness that reminds me of those digestive crackers babies eat. The sauce, on the other hand, had the kind of heady vanilla sweetness that leaves behind a hint of sour milk aftertaste. But fear not Yan-Yanners, if vanilla is not your flavor of choice, you also have strawberry and chocolate dipping sauce options.

While the tasting experience is less than extraordinary, the unique Yan Yan fun comes from the words imprinted on the stick itself. The packaging does say "look inside for fun words" and so I was prepared for snack-sized literary engagement; well, I got it. Yan Yan is the embodiment of a Dadaist snack manifesto. Here is a sampling of the quality artistic expression included on just a few of my Yan Yan sticks.

"SQUIRREL BEST FRIEND."

"RHINOCEROS THINK BIG"

"CHICKEN KOKEKOKKO"

"GOAT YOU ARE LUCKY TODAY"

And my personal favorite:

"STAG BEETLE LOVE IT"

This is the kind of anarchistic, anti-bourgeois associative language-play that would make Tristan Tzara proud. In fact, I am preparing a staged Yan Yan reading for 2013 as part of my ongoing series entitled "Performative Snack Presence(s)."

Berry Unnecessary

Snack people, I live for you; I'm living because of you. Today, on our semi-regular conference call, I'd like to discuss the food stuffs to your left. 





It's an Oreo product, a cookie brand whose ontology has grown considerably from the simple sandwich cookie that dives deeply into bovine milk that many of us know and love.

This is a Berry Burst Ice Cream-flavored Oreo, the berry cream of which, I believe, is supposed to make you think you're eating a black raspberry ice cream derivative (they even drew a picture for you). I am here to tell you that you are not. You are eating an Oreo with some sort of oddly textured cream, like someone poured Pop Rocks into your Oreo cream for April Fool's Day. Not funny. It's chalky and tart, in a bad way, and no one likes a BAD chalky tart. 

And who said Oreo's are the natural companion of black raspberry flavor? No one, that's who. Nobody ever said that. What, you think that because Lindt or Godiva or Milka or Ritter Sport put chocolate and raspberries together that it means you, Oreo, can or should as well? DON'T TALK BACK TO ME, I'M NOT MILKA OR LINDT'S MOTHER, I AM YOUR MOTHER AND I SAID "NO".

But I digress. I applaud Oreo for their attempt at this interpretation, but it just leaves me wanting a real Oreo now and then a bowl of delicious creamy black raspberry ice cream later on. But not together. 

Now, go to your god damn room.

The Siren Song of Pirate's Booty

Puffed cheese snacks are a whim whose siren song calls out to me maybe once every few months. Like all good whims, they come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and flavors. Hard and skinny, like Cheetos, or puffy and chubby like Utz, they are available in a range of shades on the white to orange spectrum, which directly correlates to the flavor spectrum of cheddar to "cheez."

Pirate's Booty with Aged White Cheddar is all natural "baked rice and corn puffs" that called out to me from my favorite snack purveyor, Walgreens (whose bounty we covered in January). This was my first seduction at the hands of PB, and as I sit here amongst the crumbs of an entire bag eaten in one sitting, I feel less than satisfied. My dissatisfaction comes from a few small peeves that, while not hindering my eating of the entire bag, made the experience slightly imperfect. So before you sit down to shiver your timbers, here are a few things you should know.

First, the shape of PB is something I can only describe as "larval." I acknowledge how unnerving it is to associate anything insect-related with food, but I don't want the unsuspecting snacker to be caught unawares. The puff is curled into a semi-circle that resembles a white pill bug partially unfurled. It requires some suspension of disbelief to take that first bite.

In a similar category, the texture of PB is inconsistent. Your teeth crunch into the relatively puffy structure and encounter a sharp crunch in the middle that reminds me of the seeds inside of a fig. That texture differential is likely due to the mix of rice and corn and the "all natural" baking process, but it may be unpleasing to those used to a more consistent puff.

Finally, if the bag is left open for too long, the puffs acquire a distinct styrofoam texture that makes eating them slightly unpleasant. Perhaps this is why I ate the entire bag so quickly, so as to avoid the progression of stryo-flavor.

These minor imperfections did not stand in the way of my whim, but knowledge is power, so if you are looking for a soft puff of cheese that does not bring to mind anything insectual, you may want to avoid the call of Pirate's Booty.

It's an International Snack Parade!

Grab your plastic derby hats and foam fingers because a visit to your neighborhood Walgreens is a family outing to an International Snack Parade!

This most recent trip to Walgreens, originally for toilet paper, resulted in a gathering of Sunday-afternoon impulse purchases that would make the United Nations proud. Where else could you get some hair dye, a birthday card for your grandfather, and some swiffer pads, and yet still come away with a World Cup of snacks from Great Britain, Italy, Taiwan, Belgium, Japan, and a can of Pringles to boot (pictured, clockwise from top left corner.)

Of course, had I been at a grocery store, none of this would have been exceptional, but this is the biggest DRUGSTORE CHAIN in the country! Don't get it twisted, people: while waiting to fill your prescription for pink eye medication or to develop the photos from that crappy instant camera you were forced to use at your cousin's wedding, you can take a trip around the world via delicacies such as taro mochi, basil-flavored crunchy pea snacks, or hazelnut creme wafers!

So, let the world rejoice with plastic bead necklaces and whistles (which you can conveniently get while you are there), Walgreens is the international snack gathering you can celebrate more than once a year!

Graham Cracker Prostitutes

Hi, Snack people! I missed you! I hope your holidays were filled with love, joy, and snaxxx. The loveliness you see next to this verbiage is a treat from across the pond known as McVitie's Digestive Biscuits. These scrumptious circles are so popular in the UK that Prince William had his grooms cake made out of 1,700 of them when he married that girl last year, or whatever. Royal cookies!

At first glance, these things are not so impressive-looking, and to merely describe them as "tasty wheat biscuits" makes them sound more like a pick-me-up shared between secret lesbian lovers Mary Whitehouse and Mrs. Thatcher than a bedside sex-recharger for Cynthia Payne. 

Speaking of whores, these biscuits are like sultry graham crackers that give you all they can in the form of buttery, deep, caramelized flavor with the slightly more substantial crunch of a cookie. Regular graham crackers will taste like construction paper after you have some McVitie's on your tongue. Put peanut butter on them, you slut. Dip them in chocolate and frosting. WHORE! YOUR DIRTY PILLOWS ARE SHOWING.

Plus, these luscious treats also have a ton of fiber in them so you can feel like you're actually eating something good for you. Just don't overindulge and give yourself an accidental colonic like I did with Fiber Gummy Bears in the middle of the night because I was so hungry from a 12-mile run. Just saying.

Focaccia Me

Snack Friends, I render unto you my sincerest apologies for the radio silence. Snacks are always in my head, and those that celebrate them, our readers and my colleagues Lian and Snacky K, are always in my heart.

From the island of Savory Snacks, I submit to you planks of dried bread, brushed with butter and chemical flavor known as Focaccia Sticks.

Focaccia is an Italian bread that we chowed down like whoa in the late 1990's when bruschetta was the go-to appetizer for family restaurant chains. Now, post-Carb Apocalypse, the thick, oily, charming Italian bread is treated like the cast members of the Jersey Shore: ridiculed, crouton-ed, and relegated to low-level feedbag chains who use it to hold triple cheese burgers together, or to feed the homeless.

These sticks, however, arrive slyly in the salad fixins section of the grocery store, probably because the purveyors of these treats would like you to put them in your mixed greens for some texture. I applaud texture, but I also enjoy eating these straight out of the bag, in defiance of the Carb Eugenics Police. These planks of bread and butter are the foundation on which we, the unafraid will join together as the Carb Liberation Front. 

Yes, these stale pieces of focaccia toast could break your tooth like any piece of biscotti ever made, even by your friend's grandmother who is supposedly "really Italian, like, from Italy and stuff"; but isn't a buttery, rosemary-y, salty crunch worth a new crown or a root canal when faced with the reality of Carb Racists trying to keep us from the white flour that God herself handed to us?

ISN'T IT? YES, IT IS. I'M GLAD YOU AGREE. Also, I would eat croutons as a snack anyway, so whatever.

Try sucking on this straw...

Imagine, if you will, a french fry. A french fry we understand as a long, skinny crispy-fried rectangular tube filled with a soft (perhaps mashed-y) potato filling. It is hot (if done correctly) and the perfect combination of crispy and mushy.

Now I'd like to discuss the "Veggie Medley Straw" (VMS) in this context. Scouring the bodega for a late night salty snack, I was immediately attracted to the brick-red-and-tan-colored bag with a sunflower garden on the label which was clearly going to offer me a Diane Lane experience. I also appreciate how muted tri-colored snacks provide a convincing illusion of health. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, especially because anything sold as a "straw" is usually meant for children. Pulling out one of the straws, I see that it is indeed hollow (i.e.: straw-like), and slightly curved unlike those stick-straight potato, um, sticks. I commence with the eating.

It's as if THE JOLLY GREEN GIANT HIMSELF sucked the lifeblood out of the McDonald's french fry and left us only the vampiric remains- except in a good way. It's 100 degrees in Brooklyn right now, and the last thing I want is a hot greasy pile of salty fried potato product. HOWEVER, the cool as a freeze-dried-cucumber VMS is a perfect choice when you want a salty french fry experience without the irritation of temperature adjustments; it also conveniently eschews the styrofoam texture that runs rampant in the "healthy baked" snack phylum. Though the straws come in three colors implying the flavors of plain potato, tomato, and spinach, really only the pale green/spinach straw evoked any flavor other than super-salty-potato. I am not disappointed by this, however, because, really, who wants a green french fry?

So next time you are looking for a pseudo-healthy-tri-colored-hollow-french-fry-substitute, please consider the Veggie Medley Straw; I promise it's even better than the real thing.