Meiji Snow Wasabi Baby Cheese

If I didn't write this blog, there is every chance that my 4:00 pm snack each and every day would consist of a small portion of some type of cheese and some sort of accompanying salted snack (crackers, pretzels, etc.). Frankly, there is little that I find more satisfying for me than this pairing. I'll take this savory combo over sweets most days. I'm guessing this is part of getting older and having moldering taste buds that can detect only stronger flavors, like the pungency of cheese and the heavy salt of a cracker or other such like.


These packets of small processed cheese blocks are sold in supermarkets and convenience stores all over Japan. They usually cost 100-150 yen depending on the brand and the number of blocks in the pack. This one was 100 yen ($1.20) at Seiyu supermarket. There are four 18-gram (.63 oz.) servings and each is 57 calories. There are usually salami, almond, and various fortified flavors (added Iron or Calcium). This wasabi version isn't incredibly common, and appealed to me because I like things like jalapeno cheddar back home. I like the combination of spiciness with the coolness of cheese.

When I peeled back the foil, I was disappointed to see that there weren't little green bits of wasabi embedded in the cheese. The ingredients list reveals that powdered wasabi was used to flavor it. That isn't necessarily a bad point, but from an aesthetic point of view (and that does play a role in enjoying food).

These don't smell like much. They have the same bland aroma of processed cheese. The cheese flavor is not particularly strong. It comes across as more like cream cheese that operates as a base for the wasabi flavor. The wasabi is fairly well-balanced and is neither too strong nor too weak and the cheese seems to stop it from doing the usual punch to the back of the sinuses that I get from wasabi.

If you're a fan of wasabi, this makes a nice accompaniment to a pretty bland cracker. It's compact and easy to serve, which makes it more convenient than squeezing wasabi paste and placing cheese individually on a cracker, but it is a little expensive for what you're getting. Still, it's nice to keep on hand as a quick and handy snack, especially in your office refrigerator.

Snow Brand Salami Baby Cheese

There's a well-known sequence in the Simpsons where Homer fantasizes about "the Land of Chocolate". In fact, it's so well known among Simpsons geeks that a video game has even been built around the Land of Chocolate. If the Simpsons had originated in Japan, I think that Homer may have been merrily skipping through the land of processed cheese and drinking from cloudy fountains of fresh whey.

I have no firsthand evidence that Japanese people love soft blocks of whey-infused cheese product, but the plethora of it in markets forces me to reach the conclusion that they must. I guess it's also possible that the long shelf life means that it just sits there for months unpurchased, but is just as fresh and tasty as the day it was wrapped whenever it happens to be purchased.

Since I've been eating and reviewing a lot of sweets lately, I decided to give another "baby cheese" product a sample, particularly since my initial experience was generally a positive one. However, choosing "salami" is a little risky as marrying meat-products and processed cheese can result in very unfortunate offspring.

The ingredients reveal that there is some salami in these. You wouldn't know it to look at it though since there are only bare specks of what could be meat embedded in the tiny pale bricks. Most of the salami flavor comes from ham seasoning rather than from actual meat. Each little foil-wrapped block is 18 grams and 60 calories and is enough to top two crackers.


The cheese smells like salami and tastes very strongly of it. In fact, the salami flavor is so intense that you don't get much of the cheese flavor at all. It's more like eating mild salami in a softer format that can be melted or spread. The initial bite seems so strong that you might think it's artificial flavor, but it's actually real salami flavor. It's decent for what it is. The blocks are soft and easy to eat. It's not real cheese by any stretch of the imagination, but it's pleasant enough to eat, especially if you want a snack of some substance.

As a side note, this cheese is made by a company which has been plagued by scandals of various types. Snow Brand altered expiration dates on their butter, sold spoiled milk, mislabeled beef products, and food poisoned people with its products. Given their track record, it might seem a bit risky buying their processed cheese. However, I figure that a company that has already been caught in so many difficulties is less likely to be pulling any funny business now. Of course, I could be wrong, but this cheese hasn't had any ill effects on me. I probably won't buy this again, but not because I didn't enjoy it a little. It's mainly because I rarely crave salami flavors, and there are so many other baby cheeses waiting for me to sample them.