Cheapee Snack Roundup: International Cookies on Parade!

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:

Read more

Snack Review: Cream Collon

Our friends over at Candy Addict have mentioned Collon, but apparently were afraid to actually try it. But hey, I’ve eaten coconut-flavored maggots for this site. It takes a lot more than a funny name to frighten me off.

Collon is not a candy, it’s more of a filled cookie. My theory is that the name relates to some more innocent English word like ‘cone’ or ‘crown’ which has been transliterated into Japanese and then back, not entirely successfully. They seem like a sort of mini-interpretation of a common Japanese baked good which is a cone-shaped bread/pastry roll with cream in it.

I admit, I tried the vanilla flavor rather than that chocolate. Without a brown filling, the association to the more unfortunate English word is a lot weaker.

Read more

Snack Review: Coconut Toothpick Cookie

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….

Read more

Snack Review: Crummy Brothers Organic Chocolate Chip Cookies

Used to be, it was pretty safe to walk past the cookie section at a natural foods store. There was very little that was tempting – it all seemed to be designed as “treats” for the sad offspring of parents who were terrified to let little Madison and Joshua put anything in their mouths that might be remotely fun.

Well, I took a wrong turn down an aisle at Whole Foods recently and, boy, things have changed. A lot of this stuff is surely way too fancy (and expensive) to be meant for junk-deprived kiddies. And here’s the thing: these natural products ought to have a real fighting chance to be delicious. Because when I read the box, I see real ingredients that I would use to bake at home: butter, vanilla extract, sugar… rather than extra-high-test corn syrup and multisyllabic words that would be more at home on a Periodic Table of Industrial Foodstuffs.

Read more

Snack Review: Quadratini Dark Chocolate Wafer Cookies

I have always been a sucker for the kind of cookie that’s many layers of flaky wafers with cream in between. In high school I ate tons of Toggenburger chocolate wafers but I haven’t seen them in years, so every once in a while I try another brand. They are always made in another country – apparently this is an un-American sort of cookie. And for years I kept trying new kinds, full of hope and faith in the baking traditions of the great countries of Europe.

And every time I was disappointed. They are always filled with some nasty sugary “cream” that is made with frightening trans-fats and such, and are barely chocolate colored, never mind any chocolate flavor. And I say to myself for the millionth time “you can’t go home again” and throw the rest of the package out.

I bought these with no particular expectation that it would be any different. Whatever, they’re at Trader Joe’s, they’re cheap, I’m a sucker, what can you say?

Read more