The Amazing Japanese Snacks You're Missing

Japanese culture is often impenetrably mysterious to the Western mind. Spend enough time in one of its avenues—anime, for instance—and a sort of internal logic will become clear.  You'll learn the tropes, the big names, the history, and where is the conversation is today. But to the uninitiated, there are few nations (especially ultra-developed ones) on earth that present confounding cultural artifacts like Japan. After the confusion, however, the West usually embraces Japanese cultural exports with unparalleled fervor. Anime, sushi, ninjas, and giant robots seem as American as apple pie in 2015. So what can we expect will be popular here in the next decade, when it comes to food? Let's take a look at the best of Japanese food curios.


Mountain Dew Cheetos

I imagine that if a Kim Jong-un-style despot decided to make an America Theme Park, this is the sort of snack that would be sold there. What seems like a parody of American snack sensibilities is simply a legitimate product in Japan. While I've never had the pleasure, these pale Cheetos are described as "tingly, or fizzy" by one YouTube Japanese snack enthusiast, and favor their Mountain Dew DNA heavily. Since Cheetos and Mountain Dew are both owned by PepsiCo, I can't help but think this Frankenstein product was the result of a lost bet at a high-stakes poker game between Pepsi execs in some Tokyo penthouse.

Animal Donuts

Japanese pop culture has long been expert at pushing the boundaries of cuteness into unfathomable and bizarre directions. Pokemon, for instance. Hello Kitty. Attack on Titan. And now...animal-shaped donuts.

Donuts were already a cutest-in-class snack, with the only competitor being, perhaps, mini-cupcakes. That's not a fair comparison unless we're talking about mini-donuts, which we're not. We're talking about donuts shaped like pigs and cats. These zoomorphic disks of fried dough have been heralded as the "next cronut." Wow. The main animus behind this product seems to be someone asking, "why not?"

Weird Kit Kats

If you think white chocolate Kit Kats are exotic, then you need to get out more. In Japan, white chocolate Kit Kats are fed to birds by the elderly. (Not true, probably.) The real Kit Kat enthusiasm is reserved for flavors like...wasabi. And green tea. And soybean. It's weird how much I suddenly want a wasabi Kit Kat. I'm suspicious that the urge comes from the knowledge that I cannot have one. 




Moko Moko Mokolet

This is a candy toilet playset, essentially. You use the included plastic toilet as a sort of mixing bowl in which to mix the included fizzy treat. Then you can eat the delcious mixture from a tiny toilet. You'll be doing this either A) in public, which is really odd, or B) in private, which is somehow much worse. I'd like to see some data on consumer trends associated with this product, but I can't find any. 

Salty Watermelon Pepsi

Before I mock this, I'll just come out and say I'd like to try a shot glassful of this beverage. Frankly, I didn't know that salty watermelons were a thing to begin, and the idea of combining them with a Pepsi is the sort of mad science that just might be brilliant. In extremely small doses, of course.

Cool, Refreshing Liquid Eel Drink

Remember when you and your best friend used to ride your ten speeds down the dirt road to the corner store in the heat of summer, and the dirt would stick to your sweaty brow, and you'd bound into the store with 75 cents in your little fist, aching for that first gulp of liquid eel drink? No? Well, maybe your kids will, if Unagi Nobori ever takes off here. Unagi Nobori, which translates to "Surging Eel," is a drink that contains eel extract, vitamins, and other mysteries.

Now, for context, you have to realize that Japan loves eating generally. There is an "eel-eating season" during the summer. Eels are a delicacy, and there's even an eel black market, eel fraud, and all the other trappings of a delicacy market. So this eel drink makes sense, if you're from Japan. 







Basashi ice

I don't even want to be the one to tell you that the Ice Cream City ice cream store in the Sunshine City shopping mall in Tokyo serves raw horse meat ice cream. But how can I know this and not tell you? That said, I'm not sure I can continue at this point. Until next time...

Return to Cinder: Sky Lanterns and Safety

Last night, on the 4th of July, I found a giant pink snake in the road in front of my house. It was the size and diameter of a small child. It had a hole in its side that looked like it had been made by a fireball.

Upon closer inspection, the pink snake was not a pink snake at all, but a giant paper lantern that had come to rest in front of my house, after presumably concluding its fiery journey across the night sky. It was one of dozens in a fiery flock during last night's Independence Day celebrations. It didn't land on my roof and leave my house a smoking ruin, so all's well that ends well. But the proximity of the lantern husk to my house brought a health and well-being issue into sharp, personal focus: the 4th of July in America can be a stressful, dangerous time.

Dogs go off the rails. Combat veterans stay inside. Your neighbors explode munitions along a spectrum of responsibility and legality. People fire guns at the sky, with little concern over the destination of the bullets. And an armada of small fires descends from the sky, with no regard.

Fire in the Sky

Two years ago, a fire at the Jayplas Recycling Plant in Smethwick, England, caused about $9M in damage, hospitalized 3 firefighters, and terrified the surrounding community. The fire was started by a "sky lantern," of the sort I found outside my house last night.

The Cobb family, of Trowbridge, Wiltshire, England, nearly lost their house to a sky lantern fire in 2011. Luckily, a neighbor called the fire department while the family slept.   

Last year, in Kentwood, Michigan, a sky lantern fire almost burned down a small business. The business escaped with $10,000 in damage instead.

Sky lanterns often land in yards and other private property, where they generally lay without incident until someone cleans them up. But when there are incidents, they tend to be serious. Debbie Hyatt, a Michigan Center woman, can tell you all about how serious.

Hyatt was was rounding a curve in her car a few 4ths ago when she saw a huge grounded lantern in the road. It seems to be the same make as the pink snake outside my house. Hyatt swerved to avoid the lantern, thinking it was a couch. She smashed her car into a tree. Her daughter's jaw was broken in three places. Hyatt severely injured her ankle, and their car was totaled.

Pick of the Litter 
Fire hazard aside, critics of the lanterns have lambasted them for the litter they leave behind. While the paper might be merely unsightly, the wire lanterns' wire frames are more substantial, becoming choking hazards for animals.

Wish Lanterns, of Dallas, TX, is sensitive to the concerns about its products. The company has replaced the wire parts of its lanterns with bamboo, and claim their product is 100% biodegradable. They claim the design is such that only a lantern expended of its fuel and no longer aflame will actually descend. 

Let Me Stand Next to Your Fire—and Make Sure It Doesn't Take Off

Despite changes in manufacture, sky lanterns are gaining some serious opposition. No one denies that they're beautiful, but groups concerned with safety and liability are saying "no" to the lanterns. The Boy Scouts have decided to stop using them.

Many farmers in Britain and the United States are campaigning for a ban on sky lanterns as well.

US fire marshals aren't thrilled about sky lanterns; many are calling for a ban on them. They're already banned in 24 states, and some municipalities. Not mine, obviously.

Anti-balloon site balloonsblow.org has a special section devoted to sky lanterns, and a link has been making its way around Facebook this season. This is doubtlessly increasing awareness this season.

Return to Cinder
Sky lanterns are beautiful. Last night, I was glad to see them glowing against the late blue sky, despite the dangers. Today, there were no reports of lantern-caused fire in my city. But there's a big pink reminder outside my window that hazards like this are always abstract, until they land close to home. It will be interesting to see how our culture balances these issues in the years to come.