Japanese Snack Foods
Japanese love their snack foods but unlike much of the western world chocolate is not one of the major sellers, other than Pocky which is very popular, it’s a long straw like pretzel with chocolate or other coatings including different flavours and nuts there is even a few savory flavors including pumpkin, pizza and sweet potato, and there are special seasonal varieties produced. It is estimated that Glico the manufacturers sell over 30 billion Yen of Pocky in Japan each year.
Most Japanese candy have cute little animated characters on the wrapping, and some have some pretty cute English names, Favorites include Hello Panda, which is a biscuit based treat stuffed with sweet goo, then there’s Watta which is a chewing gum, and even a product with the unfortunate name of Chocolate Collon.
Chewing gums are quiet popular and they don’t just stop at the mint or fruit flavor, coffee flavour is very popular and what would chewing gum be without various flavours from the ocean. There’s quiet a few seafood flavours including Octopus, Shrimp and seaweed.
Potato crisp, corn chips and rice crackers are also quiet popular, they don’t just have the normal bbq, salt and vinegar and chicken flavors we have in the west, they have all sorts of wonderful flavours complete with their own special smells. How does Octopus flavor corn tubes sound, or sea cucumber chips, seaweed and teriyaki crackers, or Kyabetsu Taro which are corn balls with nori and brown sauce. They even have a cabbage Taro,- The frog wearing the sailor’s suit on the package is enough to make you buy it, but don’t expect any cabbage in the product its made of corn.
Don Tacos are one of the popular corn tortilla chips there’s hamburger sauce flavour, super hot chili and seafood flavour. If the super hot chili variety isn’t hot enough for you try Bokun Habanero potato chips they have a evil chili pepper character on the cover, and if his evil grin is anything to go by these snacks will burn your stomach out. They even make a slightly milder version called Bebita for the kids and have Tyrant Bebinero’s little sister chili on the package. The Habanero pepper is one of the world’s hottest chilies.
There are quiet a lot of seafood based snacks, squid rings, shrimp or octopus rings etct, some of the favorites are Yotchan Ika which is a fried squid and vinegar treat, Tsurme, Ebisenbei and Mikako Konbu which contains herring.
