Bourbon Petit Mame Ring Snack

When I was a kid, I had the experience that so many children are familiar with in which my mother said I couldn't leave the table until I ate my vegetables. In my case, that vegetable was peas. I'm actually pretty open-minded about vegetables in general and will sample, if not eat and enjoy, nearly anything except peas. Oh sure, I'll eat a random pea in a dish full of other items, but I'd never seek out pea soup or buy peas and eat them straight up. My mother made sure that I would forever hate peas by making me sit there until I ate mushy, salty, disgusting canned peas. I don't remember if I gave in, but my distinct impression was that I won rather than my mother or the peas.

In light of that, it is odd that I'd look upon this sleeve of pea-driven salted snacks and decide that, "yes, I will buy this." Trust me when I say that this is in no way some valiant effort to overcome my vegetable traumas from childhood but rather my careless consideration of the Japanese and addled confusion. I read "mame", but my brain "heard" "edamame" (immature soybeans). It also doesn't hurt that this has a picture of a yuzu fruit and the characters for yuzu pepper written on it. I'm a bit nutty for yuzu, as future and past reviews will reveal. 

These smell very "beany", which is no surprise since they are pea-based and the first ingredient is "endo powder" or pea powder. The flavor is comes in layers, and that is always a good thing. The chips are quite tiny and feel very cool on the tongue and you experience the pea flavor first. That is followed by the almost vinegary sourness of the yuzu and finally a slightly peppery kick. I love it when a pedestrian snack has depth of flavor as this does. So often, cheap snacks such as this about 90-yen ($1.17) 39-gram (1.4 oz.) sleeve, rely mainly on crunchiness, greasiness, and salt to make the consumer happy. This has quite a bit more going for it.

I am very attracted in general to Bourbon's Petit line of snacks because of the size, portability and variety and this really is one of the better options for salted snacks that they have offered. The only issue I have with these is that they do have a distinct "Pringles" texture going for them as they are the sort of chip that is pressed together and then fried. It also is pretty fatty and packs 226 calories into this small amount. As long as you don't fool yourself into thinking that pea-based chips are more nutritious than potato ones though, you're going to be okay with that.