Random Picture #178

When I see English like this on a Japanese product, I'm never sure of how savvy the promoters are about the meaning. Do they just name is "Rock'n Puff" because these are little rock-shaped nuggets or are they trying to imply that you should be snacking on these as you watch a heavy metal concert on DVD. Perhaps you could use them to pelt someone in pseudo-biblical-style punishment only without the actual death. Instead of bruises and blood, you'll just leave little brown chocolate smears all over them.

This snack, made by somewhat low-rent snack maker Cisco, has a cocoa puff in the center, bits of corn flake and a chocolate coating. Since my experiences with Cisco's products have not been stellar, I passed on actually buying it, but I did think the name warranted a photo and a word or two.

Cisco's Vanilla Cream Dacquoise Cookies

My husband spied these cookies while we perusing Family Mart convenience store ("konbini") before heading up to the counter to pay our utility bills. He picked up the last remaining bag and said they looked good, but then put them back. I had a look at the ingredients list, which started with sugar, then quickly went to eggs, shortening, almonds, and "sugar water" then flour and thought these looked like something of interest. Any time eggs or nuts are high on the list, I'm happy as that means they're generally a variation on some sort of European treat. I'm even happier if the eggs end up being part of a meringue base.

The package cost 105 yen ($1.25) for a mere three cookies. Each cookie is about 5 cm long and 4 cm wide (2" x 1.6"), so they're far from cheap despite being "konbini" fare. There was also a coffee variety and it had just one bag remaining. I don't know if this was a good sign or not, but we decided to go for the vanilla. They are made by Cisco's, a division of food producer Nissin. Previously, I had sampled and indifferently reviewed Cisco's sweet potato cookies. Each cookie is 49 calories.

I had never heard of dacquoise before buying these cookies so I didn't know what to expect aside from what we could see in the picture on the front of the bag which is misleading. The cookies are a sponge with a lightly crisp film on top filled with fatty whipped cream. They smell like vanilla and "sweetness". The cookies are tender inside and slightly spongey. The cream is soft, very, very sweet and has good vanilla flavor. It reminded me of the filling in some snack cake I may have eaten many, many years ago back home, but I can't remember which it might be.

This is a very nice little treat, but it is incredibly sweet. If you're sensitive to really sugary treats, you'll want to give this a miss, but it does make a lovely pairing with coffee and if you just eat one cookie at a time, it shouldn't be too overbearing. I truly enjoyed this and it has already been decided that we'll buy them again (likely sampling the coffee variety).

Cisco's Shittori Sweet Potato Cookies

A few of my students know about my blogs, including this snack blog. I'm not trying to hide them from anyone, but I'm also not foisting them on Japanese folks. The main problem with telling a student about my outside projects is that they will feel somewhat bound to actually read or follow what I do out of politeness. That's a burden I don't want to put on them.

When my student looked over this blog, she told me she was amazed at the variety of snacks that I wrote about because she had never seen or experienced the vast majority of them. Considering she has two children, and presumably has purchased snack foods for them, that is an interesting reflection on the scatter shot nature of availability of certain foods in Japan. You really don't know what you'll find or where you'll find something new. There must be an elaborate manner in which shelf space is negotiated in Tokyo that I'd love to gain insight into, but I'm guessing it isn't the sort of information companies would like to share. After all, if they can effectively squeeze their products onto hotly desired shelves, they're not going to tell anyone else how they manage it.

I discovered these cookies at Don Quixote, a chain of stores that carries a variety of goods including novelties, housewares, clothing, and food. There are branches of this shop in Japan and Hawaii, though I don't think you can find them anywhere else in the United States. The package contains six 5 cm x 3 cm (2 in. x 1.2 in.) cookies and cost 98 yen ($1.07). The company that makes this is Nissin, a company that is better known for its cold breakfast cereals than its cookies, though they do make a small variety of cookies that tend to show up in 100 yen shops as well as some other sweets.

The ingredients for this includes the usual and expected suspects like flour, sweet potato, and sugar, but interestingly they also include white bean jam. It was my hope that the inclusion of sweet beans would lend these a nice, moist texture. They smelled pretty good, like cookies and sweet potato. Each cookie is 41 calories. The taste was disappointing. They're not very sweet, and though taste decently like sweet potato, the texture is a bit strange. In fact, it reminded me a bit of Play-doh.

These cookies were okay. I ate 5 of the 6 in the bag and then left the other sit around for awhile and eventually threw it away. It wasn't that they were really bad or anything. They just weren't very good. I think a bit more salt or more sweetness may have pepped up the flavor more. They also may have benefited from more butter, but the real issue was the texture. These cookies are moist (which is what "shittori" means), but that isn't enough. Frankly, I'd go for a traditional satsuma imo treat from a real sweets shop rather than these. I think these cookies are actually supposed to be an imitation of those traditional sweets, but they are too pale a one.