Snack Review: Morinaga Ottoto Korean Barbeque Flavor Crackers

I am sucker for animal-shaped food, and for anything Japanese. So just imagine if the animals were weird and Japanese: squid, crab, blowfish, starfish, tuna, shrimp, octopus, even uni (sea urchin)! Even those big weird ocean sunfish! Yes, I was beside myself.

The shapes are wonderful. The texture is really fantastic - they’re totally puffed up and hollow, even though they retain their animal shapes, and perfectly thin and light and crunchy.

The only catch is that I totally chose the wrong flavor. There are two choices of flavor, Salt and Korean Barbeque. I am not sure what I was thinking when I ordered the Korean Barbeque. I know that I am the kind of person who likes the simple, plain version of things. I never eat potato chips in any flavor other than plain, for instance, which I know is virtually un-American. I wouldn’t eat a barbeque flavor potato chip, for instance, if it were the last food in the house.

But, let’s be honest, Japanese crackers in the shape of squid and blowfish - if these had been Horrible Garbage flavor, I still would have wanted to try them. So I probably wasn’t thinking straight.

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Snack Review: Annie’s Organic Bunny Classics Buttery Rich Crackers

I’m always looking for something that tastes exactly like a Ritz Cracker and isn’t a Ritz Cracker. Why do I stubbornly persist in not just buying Ritz Crackers, a fine classic product that, unlike so many other things that I complain about, has remained relatively unchanged? Because I keep reading the label on them and deciding that if I’m going to eat something that gets half its calories from fat, I could have ice cream or potato chips. A cracker doesn’t seem worth it.

But, the ice cream and potato chips don’t quell the craving for Ritz crackers. So I am a sucker for a yellowish-colored cracker with holes poked in the top and scalloped edges. And of course I am a sucker for anything with an animal on the label. Even worse, some of the crackers themselves are shaped like bunnies. I could not resist.

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Snack Review: Trader Joe’s Cheddar Cheese Squares Crackers

Oh, Trader Joe’s. The highs can be so high (those lovely Popped Potato Chips), but the lows can be so, so low.

These look like Cheez-its, which are my household’s favored brand of cheese cracker. I should have realized, it’s better to go with something totally new than with a copy of something you already like. The odds are pretty good that if you think something is perfect, any small difference is going to seem like a step down from perfection.

Oh, and it was not a small difference.

These crackers don’t taste like cheese. They taste, bizarrely, like milk. I immediately looked at the ingredients, and the explanation is clear: “Natural flavor (milk).”

Actual milk could never impart such a strong milky taste and still result in a cracker-textured cracker. It would have to be a chemical from a bottle. And don’t let the “natural” fool you – “natural flavors” are still industrial products, made in a factory; the difference from “artificial” is just based on what ingredients they started out with.

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