Snack Food

I have traveled to several countries with a friend, and when we travel we do something like a snack food marathon trying as many new foods (mainly snacks) as we can. France had great ice cream and cheese (of course). Spain had awesome hot chocolate (not the kind you drink). When we were on mainland Japan earlier this year we discovered the awesome variety of snack foods flavored with green tea. I have to say green tea Kit Kats were the very best. Unfortunately I have yet to find them here in Okinawa along with green tea Pocky.  

Next year this friend is coming to visit me here in Okinawa and I have been hard at work trying all the new snack foods available. I know, I know. I am such a good friend to be working so arduously to discover new gastronomical delights to introduce to my friend when she arrives next year.

Discoveries:

Pringles come in some unusual flavors here ranging from mild salt to french consomme to smoked salami, chicken teriyaki, and more.

Pan is Japanese for bread. For you speakers of Latin languages, you already know this. (I'll go into Latin based words borrowed by the Japanese, including the names of cars in a later blog entry.) However, bread for the Japanese, I think is like a hobby, a national past time of sorts. They have done some very interesting and quite tasty things with bread. A favored flavor is melon bread. Melon bread comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes, with and without chocolate chips, covering a croissant (one of my favorites), and on and on. They also have curry bread, which I finally tried for the first time this week. I waited so long out of fear, but it is really tasty. I think the weirdest thing I've seen and have yet to try is something that looks like a squished grilled hot dog, chili and all. I think I may be too timid for that. I love hot dogs and I would hate for that to change because of a bad experience here.

By far, my favorite snack food here is the goma stick. Goma is Japanese for sesame, and let me tell you, it is chou-oishiiiii!!!! (Super delicious) The creators of the goma stick have achieved the perfect balance of sweet and salty.  It's sad that I can't bring more home because the packages I do bring home never last very long. They are so tasty. If you come to Japan, be sure to track these things down, which you should be able to find in any convenience store or grocery store. I would even suggest checking out your local asian foods store for these things. It's totally worth it.