We all have guilty pleasures. Some, such as closets of Saban-canon costumes or piles of “forgotten” CDs from New Kids on the Block and Vanilla Ice, remain unknown to all but our inner children and blackmail-equipped friends and relatives. There’s another category of pseudo-guilty pleasure, though, and as much as we’d like to feign embarrassment about enjoyments which fall into the second group, we’re secretly quite proud of them.

For me, visiting dollar stores (or 99-Cent, or 98-Cent stores – tomato, tamahto) is a member of the latter interest-group. Maybe it’s due to my Jewishness, but I really can’t resist a bargain. Especially a decent-looking and utilitarian bargain on a household item that looks decidedly non bargain-priced. Usually my dirty little shopping “secret” does not extend to food. On my latest trip to Ye Olde 99-Cent Store, though, I was hungry – so I perused the snack aisle, in search of something cheap and edible.

The sight was incredible: surrounding the yawning chasm of an aisle, yards of shelf-space granted refuge to misplaced snacks of all stripes. Local snacks which had never managed to find their niche markets shared space with imports from around the globe. Every imaginable flavor was represented, with a trend toward the obscure (at least to the lion’s share of staid American palates). Benevolent spirit that I am, I decided to adopt four kinds of super-cheap cookies from less fortunate nations and give them a comfortable home in my stomach. Here are brief opinions on my new cross-cultural cookie friends:

Stikko Wafers Chocolate Cheese Flavor:
These tri-colored, pirouette-like beauties come to us from Indonesia. They don’t look very ethnic, but the fact that they come in a “chocolate cheese” flavor betrays their non-Western origins. Pirouette cookies look elegant and feel like a luxurious indulgence, even when relatively calorically harmless. I wasn’t about to pass up the chance to try an exotic, one-dollar variation!

Stikko’s snacks were better than I’d expected them - or any other one-dollar cookie - to be. In a blind taste-test, I’m guessing they’d be barely distinguishable from fancier French or Italian pirouette cookies. The rolled cookie portion on the outside is slightly sweet, with a delicate crunch and a charming tendency to crumble. The “chocolate-cheese” filling, which I’d been wondering about, tastes like standard cocoa-flavored palm oil, without a trace of cheese. There is a slight “off-ness” I can’t identify, but I don’t think it’s cheese. I’d buy these again if faced with an empty wallet, an empty stomach and a nearby 99-Cent Store.

Danska Sugar Wafers (Pina and Dulce de Leche flavors):
The brand name, along with the windmills and hillsides adorning these otherwise stark-white packages of wafers led me to believe they came from Denmark. The flavors aroused my suspicion, though. Maybe I need to brush up on my European culture, but I don’t think pineapple is a popular Danish flavor, and although caramel is popular in that area (think stropwaffels), I wouldn’t expect it to be called “dulce de leche” except in Spanish restaurants. I glanced at the label, and saw that “Danska” is an Argentinean brand. I felt lied-to and taken advantage of. That didn’t stop me from trying the cookies.

These are no different from your run-of-the-mill (ha) low-grade sugar wafers. The crispy wafer layers are bland and lack snap, but are fairly inoffensive (they’re only containers for the creamy fillings, anyway). Both fillings tasted generic - distinguishable only by smell. Overall, I found these perfect for a cheap sugar high, but lacking the depth of, for instance, a Quadratini.

This brings me to the shining star of the bunch. Drumroll, please….

Royal Choice Honey Sesame Cookies:
Do you like graham crackers? Well, imagine a perfectly crisp graham with a vaguely vanilla-honey flavor, coated with a crystalline layer of sugar. Now imagine holding a piece in your mouth, feeling the cracker’s slow dissolution as that sugar coating melts, filling your mouth and impregnating the graham with pure, unadulterated sweetness. That is the multisensory experience of a Royal Choice Honey-Sesame cookie.

The flavor sounded Middle Eastern to me, but it’s actually Indonesian, like the Stikko cookies. I was relieved to discover the “sesame” element was limited to one or two seeds on a few of the cookies. In short, these were worth far more than the dollar I paid for them. I hope these are in stock for my next 99-Cent Store visit - if they are, I’m stocking up.

Dollar stores may hold some yet hold some undiscovered thrills. It seems browsing acres of seemingly-unloved snacks can yield some decent finds, some true horrors, and even the sporadic treasure. It’s also a way to sample exports from countries you haven’t the budget to visit. Everyone’s experience is different, though, and I’d like to hear about yours. What are your best/worst experiences and stories involving cheapee-snacks?

Buy Stikko Wafers Online:

• at Amazon.com