I am irresistibly drawn to coconut. A richly flavored coconut dessert is one of the few things that can distract me from chocolate. I saw these Vietnamese cookies in a local Thai market (snackers, praise the melting pot that is America!). The ingredients were only tapioca starch, sugar, and coconut cream. Wow, I thought, basically coconut cream as finger food. This could be great. And only $1.49. How could I pass them up?

I got them home and upon closer inspection, observed what might be a problem for some people….

They look less like toothpicks and more like… maggots?

Fortunately, I have worked as an animal keeper, so I am pretty hard to disgust. My first thought was, “Oh cool! I have to get more for Halloween!” And I knew that I wouldn’t have to eat the whole container myself – that I could bring them to my volunteer gig to share with my reptile keeper friends. They would never pass up free cookies just because they looked like the waxworm grubs that we feed to the animals.

As for the taste, oh, well. You know that ingredients on a label are supposed to be listed in order from most to least in quantity, right? That should have been the hint here. They do taste like coconut – but more like coconut flavored starch, rather than solidified coconut cream. Which I should have expected if I’d read the label more attentively.

But, the reptile keepers enjoyed them. And I am definitely buying more to save for Halloween!