Haagen Daz Lemon Ginger Float Sorbet (product announcement)

Haagen Dazs Japan gave fans of their frozen desserts a chance to sample this product before its official release on July 7. On June 2, Nissin market sold a lemon ginger float flavor before the rest of Japan could get their tongues wrapped around it. It's an interesting thing to do because the flavor is definitely going to be widely released so this isn't test marketing. It's more about making something exclusively available via a particular vendor for a limited time. It's not quite the same as limited edition Oreos only being sold at Walmart (as often seems to be the case), but it's one standard deviation away from that.

This is definitely one of the more promising unique flavor combinations that Haagen Daz has come up with. The only thing about it which could be the case is that it has a little bit of an "I have a cold and this is the flavor of tea that would probably make me feel better" vibe about it. If there was some honey in the mix, it'd definitely be a (much tastier) substitute for cough syrup. 

Haagen Dazs Mango Crispy Sandwich (product information)

If I had any doubt that the mango fad continues to march ahead unabated in Japan, the choice of mango ice cream for a Haagen Dazs crispy sandwich proves that fact. In fact, I'm starting to wonder if mango is going to join tiramisu as one of those fads that never fades away and remains in the mainstream for decades. I can't say that it would surprise me since mango is, of course, pretty awesome. However, I was not a fan of this line of ice cream sandwiches in Japan. The "crispy" shell in my experience took on moisture form the ice cream and lost some of its snap. It was also fairly brittle and tended to flake and crumble more than a conventional ice cream sandwich.

Beyond that, I made my own mango "ice cream" by buying bags of frozen mango pieces from "Lawson 100" (100 yen per bag) and adding a little milk to it and blending it in a Magic Bullet or food processor. You can't really get more "mango" than that. Sorry, Haagen Dazs. 

Haagen-Dazs Sakura and Rose Ice Cream (product announcement)

I've been watching some "documentary" shows as of late. One of my favorite series is BBC period "farm" and lifestyle shows in which some anthropologists find a homestead in England which still resembles the type that was lived in in a bygone era and work the land and home in the fashion of a particular time. So far, I've seen a series on Edwardian and medieval farms and have started another on World War II era living.

One of the things I've learned is the rose flavoring used to be a pretty big deal. Medieval folks ate flowers and others consumed rose hips. During World War II, when it was hard to come by fruit-based sources of Vitamin C, rose hips kept scurvy at bay.

I don't know about the history of eating flowers or flower-flavored items in Japan, but I do know that I was never a fan of "sakura" flavored food and it made an appearance every spring - hand in hand with all of the talk of cherry blossom viewing. I'm sure that Haagen-Dazs Japan has chosen these flavors based on the time of year and that they will appeal to young women mainly. That delicate and ornate font as well as the pretty flowers make it rather unlikely that the average businessman will be chowing down on one of these at his desk during tea time.

Haagen Dazs Opera Cake Ice Cream (product information)

Quite a few years back, I read a few blogs written by women who took part in something called the "Daring Baker's Challenge". I don't know if it still goes on because a web search yields about a billion hits, but I'm pretty sure that it is still going on. I don't know who runs it or who decides what the most recent "dare" is, but someone has to be in charge of setting up difficult tasks for people to accomplish.

One of the earliest challenges for these "daring" sorts was opera cake. I didn't know what it was, but I could see that it was immensely complex with multiple layers of cake, ganache, chocolate, coffee, and almond. It was enough to make me decide that I didn't want to take any dares in my kitchen.

This ice cream doesn't exactly come up to the challenge either. It incorporates all of the flavors of opera cake, but it has little of the complexity. It's largely a butter cream ice cream with a thin layer of almond dough ice cream topped with a layer of chocolate sauce and a few sprinkles of gold leaf on top. The flavors are pretty interesting even if it doesn't have the sophistication of the layers of cake. I was just hoping that there would be actual bits of cake in the ice cream, but that isn't a common variation in Japan. They're not quite that decadent. 

Haagen Daz Royal Cassis Milk Ice Cream (product announcement)

One of my friends once indicated, in his own unique, colorful, and thoroughly charming way, that he believed that it was a waste of my talent and potential to be writing about snack foods. I could see where he was coming from, though I did remind him that I did have another blog. 

The purpose of continuing to do this blog is that it encourages me to consider trying new things. In fact, part of its original intent was to push me to try more Japanese food back when my tastes were more conservative. As time has gone by, and I've broadened my experience to encompass quite a lot of what there is to offer, it's taken on a new purpose and that is that tracking Japanese snacks informs me about marketing, culture, and the origin of various foods. I've expanded the blog to try and include one non-Japanese review per week (usually on Fridays) in order to broaden my sampling and knowledge, but there is still plenty on the Japanese front to learn from as this product illustrated to me.

I had heard of "creme de cassis" before going to Japan, but only as a word in reference to alcoholic drinks, but I didn't know what cassis was (it's the French word for blackcurrant). It's not popular as a flavor or fruit in the U.S. - most likely because it isn't a native plant and never was incorporated into the common food culture. This ice cream includes not only cassis, but Marc de Champagne. Of course, I had never heard of that before either, but my research says that it is a colorless champagne made from the seeds and stalks that are a byproduct of making champagne. As you can see, I am pushed to become more broadly educated by virtue of writing about snacks.

Haagen Daz is marketing this as a holiday (Christmas and New Year's) special and it's supposed to wed the tangy acidity of cassis with the creaminess of milk and the warmth of the brandy. It's an extremely elegant combination which I probably would not sample even if I have the opportunity because I'm not a fan of boozy sweets. Still, I find it a reflection of the larger culture in Japan that such sophisticated offerings are created for the consumer market. It's not that we don't have such things in the U.S. - we do - but rather that they tend to be more available as specialty products by smaller artisan or craft makers. 

Haagen Dazs Japonais Ice Cream (product announcement)

Starting from October 6, Haagen Dazs will be offering a "Japonais" flavor of ice cream in single serving containers. I have done the minimal amount of investigation and learned that the name of this is French for "Japanese". I guess that lends this an air of elegance, but it seems a little silly using a French name on an American ice cream in Japan. That being said, I'm sure that this is not a rare attempt to add a little European flair to a product by giving it a more "exotic" sounding name.

I've mentioned before in this blog that what people who aren't Japanese regard as more adventurous or exotic flavors than the dreck we get here at home are actually pretty conservative in Japan. This red bean and green tea ice cream, though it looks lovely in the illustration, is downright boring in its flavor options. Red beans and green tea are the equivalent of peanut butter and chocolate in Japan. They're everywhere and they're safe choices to cater to a market with conservative tastes. It's designed to set the hearts of young women with enough disposable income to pay $3-$4 for a tiny serving of ice cream aflutter.