Cheetos Cream Stew (product information)

One thing I have learned is that it takes a special set of taste buds to appreciate certain flavor combinations. While people in general have embraced sweet and salty mixes, including things like salty caramel and chocolate, it's a lot harder to take sugar with flavors like onion, garlic, and meat flavorings. Frito-lay Japan obviously thinks that the Japanese have a genetic advantage in this regard as this release talks about the "sweetness of corn and cream" mixed with the flavor of stew. Of course, the last time they mixed sweet and salty in Cheetos was when they created the abysmal Pepsi Cheetos.

These were released on Dec. 2 and will be available for six months. If I run across a bag, I'm unlikely to try them because I am not an enormous fan of more conventional Cheetos and I'm not sure I could give these a fair shake. That being said, if upon closer inspection this appears to be a powder-seasoned salted snack and not the vile chocolate-coating-style seasoning that I experienced in the "cheese fondue" version, I may be tempted to try for the novelty of the experience.

Yuzukoshō Gourmet Cheetos

Cross-cultural differences are usually recognized mainly when they are broad and obvious like the fact that Japanese people bow and Americans shake hands. One of the reasons I continue to be interested in Japan (or other cultures for that matter) is that I want to know and understand the subtle differences. I think that the aggregate of those types of differences paints a more detailed and vivid portrait of a different culture than the most obvious differences.

What does this have to do with something as pedestrian as Cheetos? Well, this bag of Yuzukoshō (a fermented spicy seasoning made with Japanese citrus fruit like a lemon and chili peppers) salted corn snack has as a selling point that it contains 100% dark meat pork extract. It fascinates me that this point is so appealing that it's put on the front of the bag in fairly prominent letters. The Japanese clearly value the origin of their pork extracts more than I do.


My husband quickly grabbed these Cheetos, a 70 gram (2.5 oz.) bag, at our local 99 yen store while snapping up other interesting-looking goodies. He didn't pay much attention to what it said. The skewers of grilled meat pictured on the package suckered him in. If he had known it was yuzu and chili, he wouldn't have bought it.

When you open the bag, the strongest scent is of the chili, but also black pepper. The Cheetos look to be liberally sprinkled with it. The flavor is very intense in four layers. There is the sourness of the yuzu, the heat of the pepper and chili, salt, and also sugar. The mix of sweet and salty with sour is actually quite nice, but the sweetness component (which is actually the sweetener Stevia) is amped up a bit too high for my tastes. In general, I like very strong flavors, but this tastes a bit too close to a spice bomb for me. My husband also felt the flavor was too "sharp". These would probably be better if the flavors were at about 70% of their current intensity.

In the end, we'll eat the whole bag (386 calories) because they're not bad at all. I'm guessing they'd be better with a drink of some sort close and hand or as an accompaniment to food so that you could give your taste buds a rest.

Cheetos Cheese Fondue

When I saw the illustration on the front of this package, I thought there was no way the corn puffs inside were going to actually be coated in cheese. I was wrong. Each puff is coated in something, though I don't think it is any substance akin to cheese fondue.


If you imagine the texture of chocolate coating, you come closer to what the cheese gunk on these Cheetos resembles. It's slightly tacky when held in the fingers. You don't have to worry about getting any flavor powder on your hands, but you may end up with weird light yellow goop smeared on your fingers if you hold one of these long enough.

These smell rather funky, like some sort of odd type of cheese that you figure rich people eat because it's expensive, but regular people avoid because it doesn't taste very good. The feel of the coating on your tongue is bizarrely cool. They taste strange though there is certainly a cheesy flavor in there somewhere. I'm not sure if the whey flavor is too strong or if there is just way too much sugar (and not nearly enough salt) in them, but something is definitely wrong with the taste balance.

A 35 gram (1.2 oz.) bag of these costs about 140 yen (about $1.35) so they're pretty expensive. There is also 183 calories in the package which makes them fattening even for a salted snack food. Everything about these is just wrong and I wouldn't buy them again.