“Pork Rinds…Gakkkk!!”  I still remember the scene in “Big” with Tom Hanks. Perfect comic timing with that can of silly string.

Driving across the state of Missouri, you see a lot of strange, unappealing, offbrand snacks in service stations. (I am not prejudiced against offbrands ok. Some of my best friends are offbrands.) Anyway I was sure buying these flavored pork rinds would be another of the many mistakes. However (and this all depends on whether you would buy pork rinds in the first place) this Chili-Lime flavor of the Turkey Creek Fried Pork Skins were excellent. It took reminding myself of what I was eating in order to stop crunching. My animal instincts were in full force. ‘Twas the right amount of heat and citrus for any snack. To many, pork rinds are disgusting. And part of me is in that camp. Still, I can eat them just like I can eat bacon occasionally. I think the ingredients in this bag could definitely be a little better (based on my memory of the label). I haven’t compared this brand with others so it might be in line with the standard pork rind process.

This is the flavor for this snack. While Spitz Dill Pickle is THE flavor for sunflower seeds, from now on Chili-lime is hereby the official flavor for pork rinds. Others either cannot properly mask the gameyness or they just burn your face off. (Update: They have a Salt & Vinegar version. We may have a contender here, I’ll see if I can get some.)

A word about the packaging. My opinion, they are undermining their snack ideas with subpar packaging. The design is too obvious with the outlined pig, lime and pepper illustration on the transparent bag. Maybe they are targeting people who really love pork rinds, but as a pork rind skeptic, I almost didn’t buy these due to the cheap design. Perhaps they could experiment with an opaque light brown or white packaging, putting some thought in the typography and pointing out the uniqueness of this flavor. Also the Turkey Creek bag logo needs some help. They are paying a lot of money for the full color logo to be shown and it doesn’t work on the bag well. Maybe I will eventually develop brand affinity for them, who knows.

We went to the Hakuen Shopu (100 yen shop (dollar store)) today. We looked at a number of very useless things. The snack section there is not bad, however you will find some obvious rejects. I’m not sure if this Crisp Crunch Coffee patty thing is a reject, though given its oddity, I’d suspect it. I have to be honest, the taste and texture aren’t too bad. Coffee is a lesser used snack flavor and tasty when paired with chocolate of course. If you like Star Crunch from Little Debbie, which has near the most disgusting unreal chocolate created, this one is quite good compared. We are all used to crispy chocolate candy stuff (Nestle Crunch bar, duh) but it’s just that something about this snack doesn’t scream delectable. But it’s fun and funny and has a cocoa / coffee taste, which I usually love. I had a few good bites out of it, so I wanted to share it. I definitely had to share the real thing, as I couldn’t eat this monster alone unless I was paid to do so. I searched the web to find it, but then I got tired. Some other snacks from its company Cisco’s are available online, maybe I’ll post it when I have time. (I’m lying, I’ll never have time.) If you are dying to try a snack that I don’t genuinely drool over, just because it has chocolate and coffee in it, I suppose you’ll find the energy to look it up on your own. I recommend you pick up something more beautiful from a decent chocolate retailer instead though.

Here’s a pic of this bad boy with the 7″ diameter.

I was watching the episode of Dirty Jobs the other day where Mike Rowe goes to the honey farm and helps extract the honey. He’s working the family’s farmers market table and tells a customer “It’s organic!” but the family quickly corrects him. I didn’t recall if they explained why honey is not organic. It didn’t make sense at first. I mean it comes from bees and flowers right? I eat it with my peanut butter sandwiches. I assumed whatever honey I bought had one ingredient in it and it was all just a question of ounces and packaging.

The reason why honey at least in the United States shouldn’t and can’t be labeled organic is that we are too industrialized. And the bees who are buzzing from field to field before aren’t carrying passports before they get to the hive. That means all the farmland they’ve been buzzing over, it is assumed was cultivated with pesticides. Not too appealing unfortunately.  I’m not giving up on honey just yet, but it’s nice to learn a little about it. This honey article from the San Francisco Chronicle is where I learned a little bit more. Check it out if you want a sweet taste of honey politics, regulations and label lies.

Though the finding of a gray hair and fear of aging likely spawned the author to write it, this article has some good snack ideas and interesting mentions of health studies. I enjoyed it. Hopefully you will too.

7 anti-aging super foods.

I love this fruit, but I haven’t been able to try it yet. It turns sour tasting foods sweet and other “trippy” things according to what I’ve read about it. It’s kind of a flavor enhancing fruit. Enhancing is not the right word since it can turn a food you might not like, into one more delicious. For me, that would have to be Kim Chi that I try with it. Recently reminded of it from this New York Times article, I wanted to share it because I think it may have been part of an FDA conspiracy. And I love those kinds of stories where the bad guy wins (sweetener lobbyists), and then the good guy, the fruit Synsepalum dulcificum comes back for the kill through a public relations win.

If the name Synsepalum dulcificum is too annoying to pronounce, you can thank all those characters in early botany showboating their Latin skills as plant naming conventions. Fortunately it’s called the Miracle Fruit under its wikipedia entry. Whew, beans thankfully still hold the title of magical fruit.

I have been wanting to post my modified recipe for quesadillas where vinegar is one of my key ingredients for flavor. However, running across a site highlighting so many uses of vinegar, I knew I should share it.

From ODYB.net:

62 Little known uses for Vinegar

Update: I was a little reluctant to post this article initially because it’s far from a snack. However, I think it’s important because the more we understand ingredients, chemistry and alternative experimentation, we can create better snacks for ourselves. And reinforcing this is an article I just found from Boing Boing on a vinegar book review.

I have a high regard for Boing Boing and all the fantastic, bizarre and exceedingly interesting things I’ve been exposed to because of the authors and contributors of that site.

Men’s health has a story called Genius Junk Food which reminds us that some bad snacks actually have a good side. Chocolate, pork rinds, and sour cream to name a few. Believable? Sure, why not.