Would You Eat That? December Subscription Box

 I used to be a picky eater. If something that was put in front of me looked weird or smelled funny, it was instantly on my "will never eat list." Much to my mother's chagrin, this list included things like basic vegetables, every kind of nut, and even most fruits. Try as she might, and she really did try hard, I just wouldn't eat these foods or else I got so upset that the food was cold by the time I ate it. Fortunately for everyone, I have since outgrown my picky eater phase and am now open to eating almost everything. Most of the foods that I used to hate are perfectly fine now and sometimes I even try weird new foods without any problems at all. That being said, I have recently been trying some very weird foods and snacks.

As is evident by the mere existence of this blog, I think that Japan is a pretty cool place. I've already talked about some of its culture and the people who live there. But one thing I haven't mentioned yet is the food. Ranging from deep-fried sea horse to more normal things like simple rice dishes, Japanese cuisine is its own special kind of wacky-wonderful. And I've recently had the opportunity to try some of these interesting foods. I have been getting subscription boxes from Japan for a while now; they come every month and contain an assortment of prepackaged snacks and treats. Each one is a bit different from the last one and they are nothing like any American snacks on the market. I thought that it might be fun, as I get these boxes every month, to unpack them for this blog and talk about what each new food it like. We'll see if I like it and then you might what to try it too.

December Sub Box:
Brown Sugar Maple Pocky and Chicken Curry Stick

On the left is a Chicken Curry Umaibo. As you can see, it came in a brightly colored package with some sort of animated character on it. The snack itself was a long deep-fried stick that looked a little bit like puffed corn. It was yellowish and hollow on the inside. When I first opened the package, I was hit in the face with the overwhelming smell of curry, and the taste had the same kick. The flavor was so overpowering that I had to eat it in small bits and over a few hours. It tasted exactly like chicken curry and left a long-lasting aftertaste. On a scale of one to five, I'd say this Chicken Curry Umaibo was a three. Not terrible but it's definitely an acquired taste.

On the right is the first snack I tried. It also came in a brightly colored wrapper that had a little character on it. The character sort of looks like a lion but it is most likely a tiny dragon. The snack inside the package was Brown Sugar Maple Pocky. Pocky is very popular in Japan and it is also becoming well known in the US. It's a sort of tiny, crunchy breadstick that can be coated in any flavor. The most popular pocky flavor is chocolate. The Maple Pocky is also good, though. It definitely tasted like maple - very syrupy - and it left an interesting but not terrible aftertaste. The package had a decent amount of the snack inside so I was eating these for a while. It was a sweet treat that was not overly sugary; I would give it a four out of five. 

There's a lot more where this came from; there were a lot more things in the December Subscription Box that I would love to talk about. ...So, what will I eat next?


Japanese Snack Subscription Box