Have you ever wondered what Spam would taste like if it were made of fruit instead of pork shoulder? Neither had I, until I bit into Stretch Island Fruit Co’s “Fruit Leather,” a kind of Fruit-Roll-Up for (strong stomached) adults.

At 50 cents a pop, these iPod-sized fruit snacks were an impulse buy. Behaving like the easily distracted five-year-old I am, I couldn’t resist their colorful packaging, with its drawings of mangoes and strawberries dancing to what I imagined was kickin’ reggae beat. Needless to say, that tropical vibe had me at hello, and I exited the store confident in my cheap summer purchase.

But oh, how the tide changed when I tore open those pretty packages. Glistening like the US Army’s finest canned meat, Fruit Leather’s resemblance to processed ham was apparent immediately.

To give you a clearer mental picture of what they look like, imagine the sweaty face of an over-tan socialite as she sits on Miami Beach, thumbing through a copy of US Weekly. After weathering years of cigarette smoke and harsh UV rays, her skin has acquired a bumpy, pockmarked quality, which is slightly obscured by the layer of coconut oil covering her cheeks. These snacks resemble those cheeks exactly. Imagine a dermatologist’s nightmare and you’ve imagined Fruit Leather.
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To be honest, fruit rolls (or rollups, which always sounds to me like the stomach-crunching calisthenics I was ordered to perform in seventh grade) have never thrilled me. Maybe it’s because my kids occasionally request them, and most of the offerings on the market are so sickly sweet and utterly sticky (say that ten times fast) that they’re more trouble than they’re worth. On the rare occasions I ate a Fruit Roll-Up, I always felt as though I were consuming artificially sweetened and flavored industrial adhesive, and paying for the privilege.

So, it was with much trepidation that I received a large box of assorted Jovy Fruit Rolls containing enough flattened and rolled fruit to feed a small army of hungry children and nervous adults.
I was pleasantly surprised by this product and enjoyed nearly every flavor. Consider me a convert to Jovianism.
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There comes a time in every snacker’s life – for me, once or twice a week – when she contemplates the desirability of healthier eating habits. And then decides, nah, the hell with it.

During the brief interval between those two states of mind, I tried this fancy brand of fruit leather. When I was a kid growing up in New York, I used to love the apricot fruit leather that was sold in big sheets rolled into a cone-shape. It was a vaguely Middle Eastern ethnic delicacy at the time. Now, of course, this idea has gone mainstream and morphed into all those fruit leather and Fruit Roll-Up sorts of thing that is sold in all kinds of flavors and advertised to moms who, tragically, think that their kids should eat healthy snacks.

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