Porinki Asari Corn

My friends and I have an inside joke about corn. I'm not exactly certain how this happened, but it is a lot like being a Monty Python fan. The more you say something, the funnier it becomes, but only to you and everyone else thinks you're a dip. So, it's hard for me not to extoll the virtues of anything which is corn flavored in a humorous way that will not be funny to anyone outside of me and the few friends that are in on the gag.

I say all of that to preface that this gets bonus points to begin with for being corn flavored in any way or including corn in the ingredients. I'm sorry if you don't understand, but that's just the way it has to be. It would be against my nature not to believe in the greatness of corn. All hail the all-mighty corn!

With that out of the way, I'll mention the fact that this is made with a flavoring which is very common in Japan, but that I've rarely experienced here. It is what the Japanese often refer to as "corn potage" flavor and would be seen in the U.S. as a corn chowder.

This is made by a company, Koikeya, that I know very well from my time in Japan as they produce some of the most well-distributed salted snack foods. It has several highly recognizable products including "scon", which has nothing to do with what you'd think it might (scones) and is a salted snack food and this product, Polinki. They also sell a brand of chips which is quite uninventively called "Potato Chips." Yes, that's the brand right there.

The name, "asari" or "assari" (not sure how to romanize these things anymore), indicates that it is going to be a plain or clean flavor. This is meant to convey the flavor of sweet corn, pure and simple without a whole lot of complexity. It could also me "light" or "delicate" flavor, but that seems unlikely given that the corn flavoring on this is very present and deliciously sweet and authentic to the flavor of corn (the king of all grains). Also, the ingredients do include various seasonings including citric acid and tomato powder so it does have some depth. This is very savory and tasty in a way that is hard to convey in words.

The snack itself is reminiscent of a triangular Chex cereal piece, but it is pure crispy badness in terms of its contents. As far as I can tell, this isn't even something which contains actual grains and is a totally processed food. The ingredients list is a little confusing in this regard because you'd think the rigid lattice of the snack would contain corn (because it's the king and that's the flavoring of this), but it mainly seems to be composed of modified starches, cornstarch, and vegetable oil. This is not just junk food, it's super junky junkfood.

However, I don't blog about snack foods based on their nutrition profiles. If I wanted to do that, I'd have to wear yoga pants, shop at Whole Foods, and fret about how to prepare my kale this evening. Trust me, nobody wants to see any of those things happen, especially the first one. So, I will evaluate this completely based on how satisfying it is. The corn taste is amazing. The crunch is right on point. This is a great salted snack food and I wish the bag had been a lot bigger.

While I got this as part of the Oyatsucafe Dagashi box, you can find other sellers online. Tokyo Otaku Mode shop sells them, but lists them as currently out of stock. Similarly, a place called Cosme Store also has them listed, but presently out of stock. Amazon has a version of these for sale, but also says they are out of stock. I don't know what is up with that, but these are a popular inclusion in many Japanese subscription boxes. Maybe everyone is buying them up to put in boxes or something. If you'd like to try them, I'd recommend contacting one of the entities who sell them and see when they'll be available again.

Source: Oyatsucafe "Dagashi box" (part of a $15/month subscription box)

Fujiya Milky Big Ball Corn Potage Candy

Friends, Romans, countrymen, and anyone from any country other than Italy or America who reads my blog, I am here today to talk about corn. Yes, I have spoken many times about how corn is the king of all grains and I will speak of it again as long as you don't start posting comments about how you're sick of me talking about corn and will quit reading if I keep up this nonsense.

One of the many things I learned from life in Japan (and I've learned so much, including the fact that mayonnaise is considered its own food group with a minimum daily allowance in said country) was that we view corn in far too limited a fashion in the U.S. Sure, we have cornmeal, muffins, cakes, etc., but we have no yet released a candy that is corn flavored. The furthest that we are willing to go is to cram cornflakes in our sweets... and, for some reason, the sushi at Safeway supermarket also has cornflakes but that's a life mystery for another time to explore. Today, we're talking about the under-utilization of corn.

When I saw this corn candy at Nijiya market for a mere $2.19 (I'm sure it sells for about half that in Japan, but, imports, go figure), I knew that I would have to buy it because this was the sort of "only in Japan" thing that people need to be aware of. Sure, they think "only in Japan" applies to men cuddling pillows shaped like women's laps and muttering "moe" under their breath in contentment or that people are eating burgers made from the ground flesh of beef that drank nothing but beer and had their torsos massaged daily by cherubic children in school uniforms.

The real "only in Japan" is far more mundane than that, at least in my opinion. It's the funk that isn't funky enough for the blogs to cover, and it includes (but is certainly not limited to) how they more fully embrace corn. Sure, we know they put it on their pizza and sell it with their pizza (so that you can put mayo on it and eat it as your "vegetable" side dish), but they also drink it in soup for breakfast and, they put it in their candy. They put it in 22-calorie morsels of taffy-like candy that are marketed as "big balls".

I opened a wrapper and gave the candy a sniff. It doesn't smell like anything. When you put it in your mouth, it is a little on the hard side and you have to warm it up and chew it to release the flavor. As it softens into a chewing gum-like taffy, it starts to melt in your mouth and release strong sweet-corn flavor which is amplified by the corn syrup (which is the first ingredient). It is also infused with richness and even more sweetness from sweetened condensed milk. In the end, it is potently sweet and has strong corn flavor. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but this is a pretty intense flavor experience both on the sweetness and corn front.

I liked this quite a lot, to be honest. I love corn flavored things and corn potage soup in particular. Lately, I've also taken to making polenta and eating it with pancake syrup and butter (as well as in savory preparations). When I make corn tea, I even sweeten it to bring out an essence which is similar to this (and corn tea is naturally sweet). Corn and sugar are in a good relationship as far as I'm concerned.

That being said, I would not say this is for everyone. For some people, corn is associated with more savory options and they think of it as something slathered with butter and sprinkled with salt - either at a movie theater or a backyard barbecue. Depending on your tastes, this could be manna from heaven or a horrendous blob of sugary awfulness. All I can say is that, this is what "candy corn" should be rather than the horrible stuff we see every Halloween. If candy corn tasted like this corn candy, (at least some) people might actually be happy to eat it.

Bourbon Petit Corn Potage Snack

Some time ago, I had a savory food craving and went a little overboard buying rice-cracker-like snacks. Since then, those purchased in salt-craving haste have been languishing in my bin of snacks to be reviewed. I picked up three Bourbon Petit sleeves at that time, and this was one that sat dejected and neglected. The first packet was chili tomato crackers, and I should learn from this experience that a craving for crispy salty delights can be satiated by one package, and does not require four different options.

I'm an immense fan of corn potage, a type of soup made with cream, corn, onion, garlic, and chicken stock. Because of this, I've sampled every corn potage snack I've found in Japan and this one wasn't going to get away from me. That being said, I haven't always had the greatest luck with the snacks (though I always love the soup and even make my own).

When I saw this package, I had visions of sembei (rice cracker) nirvana with a savory dusting of corn potage flavor powder. What I got was a very bizarre wafer thin cracker which brought to mind Cap'n Crunch cereal (or any corn based cereal). The cereal aspect came through not only because they are corn-based, but also because they are so sweet. I know that corn often carries a certain sweetness, but this is the result of way too much Sucralose in the mix. If these had been little Cap'n Crunch chips though, my opinion would be far more favorable. Adding in savory elements changes the entire balance of the universe though.

You have to eat quite a few to start to tunnel through to the savory elements. Corn is there, yes, and a little salt. If you toss enough in your mouth at once, you can even pick up a bit on the garlic and parsley, but I'm not necessarily recommending gobbling them down by the handful. While not incredibly awful or anything, they are just plain weird. Though crispy, there's something about the texture that also didn't work. It was as if this didn't know if it wanted to be a cracker or a chip, so it tried to be both and failed on both fronts.

The only point with which I can recommend these is as cheap diet food. One sleeve is only about 70 yen (84 cents) and 32 grams (a little over an ounce) are only 145 calories. However, if you care about how your food tastes, you may want to spend more calories on something that is actually enjoyable.

Caritz Corn Potage Pretzel Snacks

Caritz (カリッ) means "crisp" in Japanese and I have to give this snack credit for truth in advertising on that front. These things are crisp. The naming seizes on the one aspect which cannot be denied. It also says "oishii" which means "delicious" and this is a big, fat lie, at least in the case of these corn potage flavor ones.

Caritz are almost certainly a low rent rip-off of Cratz brand pretzel snacks by Glico. Both of them are small nubbins of flavored pretzel mixed with nuts. The big differences are that Cratz cost about 60% more, has more nuts in the mix, and tastes good. I paid 100 yen for Caritz at a local 99 yen shop because I was hoping it was going to be a cheaper alternative to Cratz (which I love in all of its forms), and you know what people say about getting what you pay for.


When I opened the bag of Caritz, it didn't smell right. In fact, it had an odd powdered milk mixed with rancid powdered cheese smell. Corn potage is a soup which is made with corn, milk, onion, and garlic. It's made with a chicken soup stock base. All of those flavors seem to be listed in the ingredients, but I didn't taste them. I only tasted whatever the cheese component of these is with a relatively weak corn flavor. The pretzels themselves also seem off. They're hard, but in a way that is closer to a bad crouton than a good pretzel. Dense pretzels can be good, but these weren't.

Perhaps I got a bad bag of these, but this was a truly disappointing experience. It's rare for a salted snack food to be so unappealing to me when it contains a lot of flavors which I like. There is just something about the powdered flavoring that hit me completely wrong and I definitely wouldn't buy these again. In fact, I'm so put off by this flavor of Caritz that I'm unlikely to try the other flavors unless I'm really bored or willing to take a risk.

Corn Potage Snack

Everyone associates Japan with sushi, seafood, and rice. Japanese people have a few guilty nutritional secrets that you don't really notice unless you live here for awhile. The first "secret" is that the Japanese love mayonnaise. In fact, there are fan clubs devoted to mayonnaise. I sometimes joked that mayonnaise is the fourth food group in Japan because they can consume it in great abundance.

The second "secret", however, is the one that applies here. That one is that the Japanese love corn. Many newcomers to Japan are appalled to learn that you can order it as a topping on pizza. Back when I first arrived, my husband and I used to occasionally stop by a Shakey's Pizza while we were out shopping. Shakey's offered lunch time buffets at which you could eat as much as you wanted provided you were willing to eat whatever types of pizza they happened to put out there. We were displeased to learn that tuna and corn was the only variety on offer.

If you peruse convenience store baked goods, you'll often find an unholy marriage of these two secret loves in a corn and mayo sandwich. Well, it's not really a sandwich. It's a white hot dog bun type of thing topped with mayonnaise and corn. I can promise you right now that I won't be reviewing that nutri-bomb of bad carbs and fat.

Getting back to corn though. One of the more popular varieties of soup in Japan is corn potage. You can buy it in cans, as an instant powdered cup of soup mix or you can get it in family-size bags so that the whole family can put away some tasty cream corn soup. This particular flavor is what the makers of this corn snack are trying to reproduce.


This salted snack item is brought to you by Riska which makes a variety of small bags of cheap snacks for 27 yen each (about 25 cents USD). The bag contains 20 grams (.7 oz.) of puffy, light yellow corn puffs. They are airy and smell like sweet corn. Each puff is covered with a light yellow powder and a few flecks of parsley. The powder is hard to see because it is the same color as the puffs and sticks pretty well.

These are very crispy and really couldn't be better on the texture side. They taste both salty and sweet. This is no doubt to reproduce the sweet notes corn sometimes carries and is managed by adding Sucralose to the mix. The flavor is intensely savory, but very reminiscent of instant corn potage soup. Quite frankly, I love these and if I were looking for a crispy, salty snack, this would definitely be something I'd want to partake of.

I once sent a bag of these to a friend living in the U.S. and he told me they reminded him of Cap'n Crunch cereal. I can see where they might bring that to mind with their sweetness and crunch. Cap'n Crunch is, after all, made from corn (and oats). However, they are much airier and more like a cheese puff or ball so I think the comparison stops there. Also, there is no actual sugar in these and eating one of these 20 gram bags will set you back 118 calories. I'm guessing that's a better bet than 20 grams of Cap'n Crunch, and these won't cut up the roof of your mouth.