Glico Bisco Caramel Cocoa

One of the first things I learned about feeding babies, a task I was never destined to actually carry out, was that Cheerios were a "safe" solid food when you were trying to wean them off of an all-liquid diet. I learned that from one of my aunts, who had recently had a baby pass the point of needing to suckle a bottle all of the time (my mother's family weren't about to breast feed - to them, it was barbaric). She had Cheerios stocked up and I asked her why and I learned something new.

When I took home economics, the teacher felt that we needed to be indoctrinated into the ways of baby-rearing. Since I'm 49, I grew up in an age where birthin' dem babies was considered my lot in life at least to some extent. Considering my utter lack of maternal qualities, this education was just short of an utter waste of time for the likes of me. I did, however, score some brownie points for knowing that Cheerios was one of the first solid foods that were safe for infants to eat.

At no point in my limited education did anyone suggest that sandwich cookies were a part of a baby's diet. Glico puts a happy baby on the package of its "Bisco" cookies, but I'm not buying that these are for babies. In fact, they seem more suited to calorie-conscious mothers looking to lose those last few baby pounds while keeping a sweet nibble on hand, ostensibly for their young child. One of the nutritional benefits of these, supposedly, is that they put lactic acid bacteria (the good bugs in yogurt) in the cookies and it's supposed to help with digestion.

I've reviewed these tiny little packets of Bisco before and I really liked them. Note that the regular version (vanilla cookie with white cream) is in a bigger box. The limited edition flavors come in tiny little five-packs. They're definitely well-suited for carrying in ones purse. Each packet has five extremely dainty little cookies that come in at 20 calories apiece.

If you sniff these, the caramel flavor is pretty intense. There is just a small amount of cream in between two cookies which are a hybrid between a cracker and cookie and are therefore pretty crispy and a little airy. The caramel flavor is the stronger first wave flavor when you bite into the cookie. The second wave is a bit of a floury, grain-like quality followed by extremely weak, nearly anemic, cocoa flavor. It's only on the second bite that the cocoa builds up to fairly discernible levels.

These are actually pretty good. They wouldn't be my first choice for a Bisco cookie, but I still liked them and I'm not a fan of caramel. It should be said that the caramel is very artificial tasting. I think it's only decent because there is such a small amount of cream filling that it is relatively diluted. The bottom line is that I'm good with having bought these and will eat the rest without reservation, but I can't see buying them again because of the strongish artificial caramel flavor.

Glico's Asian Santa Campaign

All images from Glico.

My mother once took a part-time job as a Santa in a mall. She was chubby enough and was willing to seat children on her lap and pretend to be jolly for a month or so. She told me that most kids weren't paying heed because the beard and outfit masked her female features sufficiently, but some did notice mainly because of her hands being too small and tapered to be man-hands. In America, anyone can be Santa.

Asian Santa takes a selfie.

Glico is promoting its line of children's biscuits called "Bisco" using what it refers to as an "Asian Santa". It's interesting not because they're using a Christmas theme to sell cookies to kids, but because of the way they talk about the Santa. In the U.S., we would never specifically refer to Santa as being a particular ethnicity. It would be considered racist. I think that the reason Glico is specifying that this is an Asian Santa is because kids can write to him in Japanese and he can answer in their language. I've had students in the past talk about how, when they were kids, they were worried that Santa only understood English so they didn't write letters to him.

He's not only certified, but he's up on current events!

Besides being capable of dealing with kids in their native language (and selling them Bisco cookies), Glico's Santa is a "certified/licensed" Santa impersonator. It is very important that fake Santas be qualified to do their job. My mother didn't have such qualifications. That may be why she didn't get to go back again the following year. 

Glico Bisco Banana and Strawberry

Bisco is one of those things I've seen for decades but never expected to sample. This is because the front of the package depicts a baby and I assume these are biscuits for teething children. My view on this matter did not change, but was rather changed for me when I bought a small package of Collon for review. I didn't heed the signs very well and when I got to the check-out counter, I was told that I needed to buy three of the small packaged snacks for 100 yen ($1.24) so I rushed over to the rack and grabbed two of the first things in the general vicinity of the Collon. They were these two packages of baby biscuits.

So, now that I've spent all of 66 yen on these, I'm going to review them no matter how silly I feel eating food marketed for little kids. Based on the image on the package, these are pretty darn close to being teething biscuits... not that I'm embarrassed or anything to be gnawing on something designed for people who have no teeth. I probably will, one day, also have no teeth, though with no hope of new ones coming in.

Each little cookie is about half the size of an Oreo with a smidge of cream filling inside. The machines that make these aren't particularly careful about how they assemble them. The bottom of the cookie is sometimes the top (as you can see by the one on the right above). Each smells a bit of the fruit it is supposed to be. Both are comprised of the same fairly bland, cracker-like cookies sandwiching a modestly sweet filling with good, but not overpowering banana and strawberry flavors.

I liked these, to be perfectly honest. They're certainly not an Oreo or Nutter Butter or super sweet sandwich cookie, but I really liked the flavor of the outer biscuit. It has a real sense of being an old-fashioned baked cookie which wasn't formulated to get people addicted to eating tons of them. They're made with wheat germ which brings in a somewhat earthier flavor than usual for a cookie. Each packet has only five cookies (approximately 20 calories each, about half the total size of an Oreo) stacked on top of each other. They pair well with tea.

Would I buy these again? Absolutely. I might not buy them a lot, but if I was at work and wanted a little packet of cookies to have as a snack, these would suit me better than some sugary alternatives. That being said, I'm not sure they're going to be that appealing to people who aren't very keen on whole grains and less sweet biscuits.