Review: Assorted Snacks

• Japanese Peanuts
• Dark Chocolate-Covered Almonds
• Invisible Peanuts
• A brief interlude about dried fruit
• Dried Strawberries
• Dried Pineapple
• Hunza Raisins

I recently bought a bunch of snacks. While eating the snacks, I realized I had opinions about them.

Japanese Peanuts

The name of this snack confuses me. The description tells me these were invented by a Japanese immigrant living in Mexico. I am slightly less confused.

These look like ovular brown blobs. Their smoothness is slightly disturbing. Food is not meant to be this platonic.

The main impression during consumption is CRUNCH. They taste vaguely of soy sauce, with a small bit of peanut flavor. There are gritty bits in your mouth after swallowing. CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH.

I would likely enjoy eating these for the crunch, even if they had no flavor. My supply is being depleted alarmingly quickly. I just bought 5 more kilograms. CRUNCH.

Dark Chocolate-Covered Almonds

The only other chocolate I’ve consumed in recent memory has been Lindt 85% Dark, so maybe I’ve been anchored. That being said, the chocolate covering these almonds tastes ridiculously sweet. I can’t really taste any of the other flavors that I associate with chocolate.

The chocolate possesses the smooth melting property, which is the most important property for chocolate to have. The crunch of the almond provides a nice contrast to the meltiness of the chocolate. I think the flavor would be improved if there was some salt somewhere; the sweetness becomes overpowering fairly quickly.

Each piece is coated in a shiny waxy substance, presumably to prevent them from sticking together. Food is not meant to be this reflective.

These aren’t my favorite, but I will likely buy more when I run out. I don’t like them enough to plan for buying more before I run out.

Invisible Peanuts

CUTE! I’m also slightly horrified that a corporation made this cute joke to get me to buy more things from them. It’s probably going to work, though.

A brief interlude about dried fruit

A bowl of grapes takes tens of minutes to consume. A handful of raisins takes maybe a single minute. The handful of raisins was equivalent to an ENTIRE BOWL OF GRAPES. You just ate an ENTIRE BOWL OF GRAPES in a single minute. And you’re probably ready to eat another handful! WHAT.

Dried fruit is TOO SMALL. You can sit down and eat MULTIPLE ENTIRE MANGOS without even realizing it. Who allowed this to happen.

That is all thank you for your time.

Dried Strawberries

I am surprised by how muted the appearance of this food item is. It’s colored a semi-translucent reddish brown. The texture is lumpy. They don’t look very appetizing.

It is difficult to describe how these taste. They don’t really taste like strawberries, but they taste more like strawberries than other fruit? I’m tempted to say something like “they taste as much like strawberries as raisins taste like grapes”, but this would not be true. Dried strawberries actually taste a fair bit more like strawberries than raisins taste like grapes, but I suspect this is mostly because strawberries have a more distinctive flavor than grapes.

Have I mentioned that dried fruit is basically candy for adults? Besides some fibrous bits and some seeds, dried strawberries are basically irregularly shaped strawberry gummy candy.

Personally, I find them nauseatingly sweet. I also find candy nauseatingly sweet. Adulthood has reduced me to a bland palate.

I anticipate that the original pound I purchased is going to last me quite a while.

Dried Pineapple

All dried fruit tastes roughly the same to me. I supposed that dried pinnapple has a slight pinnapple flavor, while dried strawberries have a slight strawberry flavor. I don’t really prefer one flavor over the others so the tastes are basically equivalent to me.

Dried pinnapple maintains the same fibrous texture that you find in normal pinnapple. Biting a piece against the grain cuts the fibers, creating a very pleasant experience. Additionally, pieces can be pried apart along the grain, making this food item very easy to play with. SNIP SNIP SNIP.

Given the relative similarity between all flavors of dried fruit, pinnapple dominates the entire category by possessing the most interesting texture. I’m not a huge fan of dried fruit because they’re all cloyingly sweet, so I’m probably not going to buy more.

Hunza Raisins

Based on the photo, I thought these might have a chance of being a particular type of raisin that I had in China once. They were not. My disappointment was immeasurable and my day was ruined.

They were just normal golden raisins. I don’t actually like normal raisins. Oh well.