One of the lessons I teach my students is about the environment and food. It explains that many forest are cut down to create pastures for cattle so that we can have cheap burgers at places like MacDonald's. At the end of that lesson, there's a list of foods and students are asked if they are willing to sacrifice eating those foods in order to reduce the damage done to the environment. Bacon or ham is listed, and my students say they would never give it up. That being said, they say they don't eat a lot of it, but they do like to add small amounts of bacon to various dishes to enhance flavor.
Bacon is such an intensely flavorful food that it lends itself well to being a seasoning rather than a main dish, and it can be a truly wonderful flavoring in salted snack foods when used properly. I've had some good and not so good experiences with bacon-flavored salted snacks in Japan, and I'm pleased to say that these Pretz pretzels sticks fall into the "good" category.
I picked up this 48 gram (1.7 oz.) bag at a local market for 98 yen ($1.09) where it was on sale with another "new" flavor which didn't really light my fire, tomato. It's not that I don't like tomato, but rather that I'd rather get my tomato flavor from, well, tomatoes. I also think there's a chance tomato will be "ketchup" when it comes to salted snack seasoning. There are a plethora of delicate 10 cm. (about 4 in.) long sticks in the bag and it conveniently has a Ziploc-style top to allow you to reseal it.
When you open the bag, it smells rather "hammy" inside. The sticks are so thin and delicate that it's easy to break them. They have a very "fresh" yeast-like flavor and are just salty enough. The bacon flavor is very present, but not overbearing and the finish is of black pepper. They're not hot at all though and there's no cumulative heat effect. The ingredients include pork extract, soy sauce seasoning, onion powder, and bacon extract.
These were really good pretzels. They're not sublime or "to die for", but if I were in the market for a salted snack, I'd definitely add these to my basket again. The seasoning is really well-balanced and there are a lot of sticks for the 229 calories in the entire bag.
"giggles" it smells hammy... I like that. Would you say they taste more like pretzels or crackers?
ReplyDeleteI hear the calories aren't so bad either.. I must try.
I think these do taste more like pretzels than crackers, though I've had big Pretz before that taste more like crackers.
ReplyDeleteWhen I get to my weak of diet and health food, I think you might find some things of interest, if you don't already know about them. ;-)
I'm collecting reviews for that week now.
Thanks so much for commenting, and I hope to find the time to get a message to you one of these days! :-)
I wonder how your students would react to Baconnaise.
ReplyDeletehttp://baconnaise.com/
Ooh, a week of diet and health food, sounds good to me!
ReplyDeleteAnd I really want to try these now... I tend to go for sweet snacks rather than savoury ones, but these sound really good.
Marvo: I think Baconnaise would send them into food-gasms. Mayonnaise is the fifth food group here and marrying it to pork products would seem to be ambrosia for the Japanese. ;-)
ReplyDeletejimjamjenny: I'm glad that you'll be looking forward to the diet/health food week. :-)
Thanks to both of you for reading and taking the time to comment!
I've never had Baconnaise, but if it's what it sounds like, I think Japan already has it. They have all kinds of assorted mayos for toast, and one is "bacon egg mayo" which I think also has onions in it. It's by the jam in all the major grocery stores. My husband loves it....
ReplyDeleteI'm a big fan of the "Salad flavor" Pretz, although I try to avoid snacks these days. Next time I indulge, I'll look for these. Mmmm, bacon.
ReplyDeleteBlue Shoe: I can very much understand why you'd want to stop snacking. I am very careful about how many calories I permit on such types of foods (usually 100-200 a day). This may surprise people to learn, but I've lost weight since starting this blog. ;-)
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading and taking the time to comment!
Interesting combination but one Im not surprised about. I like bacon but Im not sure if this would be my cup of tea...may have to add it to the (growing) list of things to try when I go back to Japan!
ReplyDeleteHave you tried their Pizza stick or something. :3
ReplyDeleteHi, Kumo, and thank you for your comment. I don't think I have seen their pizza sticks. Perhaps it is seasonal and it isn't available in my area right now? If I find it, I'll try it! :-)
ReplyDelete