Czech and Romanian Snack Foods
by Lore Sjöberg
Why Czech and Romanian snacks? Because that's what came in the box.
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Funky
These have mostly French writing on them and are manufactured in France,
but Douglas Julien, who sent them, assures me they're Romanian, so I'm just going to have
to trust him. I'm also going to have to trust that by notoriously lax European
funk standards they are actually funky, and that the clown on the package isn't
going to slit my throat and drink my blood. Aside from the level of trust
they require, these are pretty standard cookies with goop between them. B |
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Telka Cha Cha
I popped one of these smiling yellow crunchies into my mouth and chewed
thoughtfully, trying to identify the flavor. Fun-yun? Some twisted variety
of cheddar? I looked at the back, which thoughtfully had information in four
languages including Great British. "Salted extruded maize with ham
flavour" it said. The sudden realization that you're chewing on ham-flavored
corn snacks is rather a startling thing to experience. I don't recommend it. D |
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Golden Fish Chips
These don't contain actual fish, thank the indifferent gods. Between the
Japanese and Korean snacks, I've had enough of seafood-in-a-sack to
last me through several cycles of samsara. Rather,
these are potato chips shaped like fish, much like goldfish
crackers, only not gold and not crackers. The flavor is pretty much
run-of-the-mill sour cream and onion, but they're shaped like happy
puffy fish, which improves everything. A |
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Krupky Arasídové
Or something like that. There are diacritics on some of the letters that
could drive a mellow man mad. Anyhow, Krupky. There's no English on
the package to provide hints here, but it appears to be a
peanut-flavored salty crunchy snack puff, the kind of thing George
Washington Carver might have come up with if he were courting the youth
market. And in fact there's a youth on the package, very excited by his
massive peanut snack in spite of the fact that he's clearly dressed in
a Burger King uniform. C- |
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Star Chips Paprika
These are your basic potato chip, except they're paprika flavored. I've
always thought of paprika more as a deviled egg adornment than as an
actual flavor, so I was interested in tasting a snack dedicated to
the paprika experience. The paprika experience is gross, folks, at least
as it applies to potato chips. It tastes kind of like the "BBQ" powder
they put on chips in this country, only more vile. Which is odd, because
I had assumed BBQ powder was itself made out of distilled and dried
vileness. D+ |
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