WtHiT? winners, 30 Sept 02

[camwyn]

The winning entry in the first weekly What the Hell is This? contest, selected from the snack food aisles of Top Quality Food Market in lovely Parsippany, New Jersey, is from Team Japan: Tohato Caramel Corn Green Tea Flavour. At least I assume it's green tea flavour. The only English on the label other than the words 'Caramel Corn' is on the ingredients list, where green tea is item six of twelve, and the only characters I can read on the bag are the ones for 'green tea'. The photograph on the bag is of green tea-looking ice cream with some kind of white stuff drizzled on it, plus a maraschino cherry; all over the background are curly Cheez Doodle-like things, only they're... well, green. Upon opening the bag I was confronted with the curly things, which are roughly semicircular, slightly ribbed, the colour of all green-tea-flavoured snack food I have ever seen, and roughly one inch across. They are sweet, which is moderately disconcerting, and have a wisp of some kind of mint-like flavour upon first contact. They are crunchy, but this batch stuck to my teeth a bit. Not bad; I'll probably eat the whole bag eventually. Upon presentation to a co-worker, she said 'they taste like caramel' - then got a very odd expression and reached for her trash bin to spit it out, as apparently the green tea flavour had kicked in and was not to her liking. All in all I think we have a solid WtHiT winner here.

Second place was also by Team Japan: Meiji brand Pucca Choco Pretzel. I bought this mainly because I wanted to show the name to cadhla at some point. Sadly, these are not shaped like little vicious horse water spirits; they are shaped like Pepperidge Farm Goldfish, although with a little less definition, no 'smile', and a hole drilled in one side - I presume this is to inject the chocolate. The chocolate is not bad, although it's a bit thicker than one expects from crappy snack foods, and the pretzel is quite crunchy. However, the pretzel is not salty, as is often the case with American choco/pretzel combos. The case is conveniently rectangular, round-edged, and small; I would not mind carrying this around as a source of chocolate if need be. The yellow/blue/red colour scheme and typeface chosen for 'Pucca' are strongly reminiscent of a bottle of Yoo-Hoo.

Next week Team China will be entering a package of something called White Rabbit that I just didn't feel like buying today. We'll see what Japan has to field against them then.

Comments

[dormouse-in-tea.livejournal.com]

Ooooo. If it's the White Rabbit I'm familiar with, it won't be a good candidate for WtHiT at all. Sweet nummy goodness.

[mephron]

Meiji chocolate is usually good in the stuff they do, excepting the Mini Burger.

(Japanesesnacks.com is coming back online around December, which can give you mail-order weird food.)

[camwyn]

The ingredients list was very short and was mostly dairy. How the hell the Chinese wound up creating a dairy based candy I don't know. The part that got me was the label reading "High in Nutritive Value!" or something similar.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

White Rabbit - mmm. A certain silverkun's favorite.

Go to Hawaii, find it in four different flavors, including lychee.

[lwood.livejournal.com]

Next week Team China will be entering a package of something called White Rabbit that I just didn't feel like buying today.

One pill makes you larger

And one pill makes you small

But the ones that Mother gives you

Don't do anything at all

Go ask Alice

When she's ten feet tall

-- Lorrie