.FOOrD BLOrG. Weird convenience

Well, hello there. I guess if we are both here it means that it is time for another season of FOASP. (Fear of a Snack Planet)....Or would it be FSP. Hmmm... Either way, it is nice to see you. First of all let me just say that the break since the last post was not due to a snack shortage. Rest assured, the back stock for this blog is bloated with things from around this floating rock we call home. Back in June I went on break from my day job and was helping my wife and her hot sauce business do farmers markets etc... This quickly became more encompassing than anticipated. For 3 months we had very little down time. This brought to mind how the old model of television will create a certain number of episodes and then take a break. So taking that blueprint, I have scheduled this season of FOASP/FSP with a few open bonus episodes for the oddity unexpectedly encountered. Otherwise every post is packed with some of the most original and possibly awful snacks we could find. I really hope that you enjoy it and come back every week.

Nuff said.

This summer was so busy that my wife and I were literally making sauce until 3-3:30 am and getting up to market at 6-7 am then napping between 3-5pm and back at the sauce. This left little time to eat. We found that the best mode for sustenance was small snacks. (Especially, since in the framework of exhaustion, you can't tell if you are tired, hungry, awake, nauseous, etc..) There is a lot to be said about how quickly we need food sometimes. Like despite some form of planning, we have to eat right then and there. Whatever we can get our grubby little mits on. (P.s. Wash your mits.)

So today our three snacks are focussed on one thing: Convenience.

First up we have POWER BEEF! Yes, your eyes do not deceive you. Those dreary dog days of dragging your heels over to a meat sack and just wasting SO many minutes chewing jerky BEFORE having an energy drink are over. Finally somebody has answered our prayers and combined the two and in doing so has saved us valuable.......seconds? Minutes? Anything? Okay, let us address the elephant (made of POWER BEEF) in the room. This is a weird idea. I am not judging and saying it is a bad idea but you can't deny that it is weird. You also can't deny that by calling it POWER BEEF with a lightning bolt behind that and stating "Get your move on!" that this might make you poop your pants.

Alright. We get it. I found the back paragraph so extreme that I wanted to try it more than words. (Eh? See what I did there?....(sigh)) Seriously? "..slam a bag of POWER BEEF"? Don't get me wrong, I love a good beef bag slamming as much as the next person but this whole Guarana flavored meat snack just has me worried a tad. For instance, is that "flavored with.." portion of the bag a sticker? Is that a good sign? Was this some sort of rush snack job? This is 2012 maybe the limelight belongs to POWER BEEF.?. (If you get that last sentence than either you listen to way to much Rush or you are my high school drama teacher...Or both.) What was under the mysterious sticker? I had to know. So I peeled and scraped it off and under "FLAVORED WITH GUARANA" was "This product contains Guarana seed and Green Tea extracts scientifically designed to boost your energy level." I am dead serious. That is what it said. I suppose the figured that the person buying anything called POWER BEEF (in all caps) would not take kindly to word wizadry messing with their minds. Plus clapping out the syllables to "scientifically" could really burn all that energy received by slamming that beef bag in the first place.

Well, there it is. It doesn't look too powerful. It sort of looks like ordinary unpowered beef. I thought it might smell like an energy drink. Maybe that is next RED BULL BEEF or MONSTER MEAT. Uh, no thanks. I don't want either of those. Although just imagine making your thanksgiving gravy with a 5 hour energy drink. You'd beat that post dinner slump and the dishes would get done lickity split. (That is a gross saying.) (Also I do not endorse POWER GRAVY in any way. I am sure there are health risks and maybe a baby heart would explode or something else hellish. So do not do that. Wait, did that baby just have a bottle of POWER GRAVY? Who is it's parents? Ugh. Some people...)

This was another one of those strange snack encounters where you fear the worse and when it isn't the devil in jerky form you kinda are a bit sad. I say this because POWER BEEF is actually fine. It smells like middle of the road jerky. It just tastes like jerky. Like a mildly smoked and ever so slightly sweet meat treat. S and I both tried it and had braced for bad but instead got what could only be described as totally fine jerky. Is that a good thing? I guess. I mean you want it to be edible. It costs 3 dollars. See, I don't mean to sound let down because it wasn't gross. I am glad that this Oregon company has made an edible product. This is just a case of an extreme package to sell the same ole meat sack. Neither of us felt the "POWER" part of the beef and I am pretty sure neither of us pooped our pants.

So all in all, you can do far worse in the jerky world for far more money. As always I recommend that you slam a meat sack and find out for yourself. I give this snack a 3.5- brushing your teeth in the shower is a time saver, brushing on the toilet is gross-out of 5.

Now if meat isn't your thing than maybe you might need this Fruit Cake on the go. Uh, my first concern here is that this doesn't look at all like fruit cake. Is that a picture of a carrot? Wait. Is carrot a fruit? I am pretty sure NOBODY has ever argued that a carrot is a fruit. I am also confident that nobody ever wanted fruit cake on the go. What else is in this snack?

Oh man, LOOK AT ALL THAT FRUIT!!!! See, just imagine, you just put some of these fruit cakes in your purse and when you want to snack on carrot, whet flower, and honey then you can just reach in and snack away. Doesn't that sound soooooooo good?

Oh yes, it looks EVEN better than any of us could have imagined. It smells like if a candle thought that it was really fancy only to realize that it is a dollar store candle in a cheap piece of pottery shaped like a shell with a baby climbing up one side and the candle shed a tear and you bottled that sadness. You know? No? Well, it smells like if a fruit rollup got a perm. Part of that could be because the "fruit cake" is wrapped in rice paper. Yeah, the same kind that is wrapped around "rice candy" which is not candy. I am sorry but I bought some as a child and was never more disappointed.

How does it taste? Like drinking my first explanation of how it smelled. I mean first lets address the texture. It feels pretty firm like jello with rigor mortis. Once in your mouth the rice paper clings to everything so that once the revolting sense of dread sets in that you won't be able to escape the death that is any mouth fun for you for the next 20-15 minutes. The taste is a thick sweetness. Like if you licked Winnie the Poohs back as he was gorging on honey all wedged in that tree. Where he is just so full and his sweaty bear back is just oozing honey sweat. Yeah, it tastes like that. So hopefully that isn't your thing but if it is then here is a snack for you. I can't honestly tell you if there is carrot in there as I just wanted it out of my mouth. I know that this is not a snack designed for me and that it is great for some bear licker just not me. Thanks but this little black rain cloud is going to stick to Sweetarts. I give this snack a .5-Why not do yoga in the elevator? If you do downward dog someone will make room. (Besides elevators and yoga studios have equal square footage to passed gas ratios. That is a scientific fact.)-out of 5.

Lastly today we have a product from Japan that costs just under 5 dollars. This hails from a snack line called "happy kitchen" and the whole appeal here is that you make the snack. As in, every element of the snack you create. Including the cute little packaging and all. I chose this for the "convenience" post because it is fast food. However in an ironic turn of events it is the MOST labor intensive and time consuming snack I have ever encountered. I get that is most of the appeal here and if I was a child this may have been magical. One time when my friend Aaron and I were at a beach house (as children) we found a make a cake kit in a box of Lucky Charms. We followed the instructions and made this microwave cake and spread weird frosting goo on it and stuck the "marshmallows" to it and split it. We gobbled it up but neither of us looked pleased about the final outcome. I suppose it really was about the mad scientist angle of creating this weird hybrid snack that was fun.

So by now I am sure that you have put together that this kit makes 2 cheese burgers, one order of french fries, and a small coke like soft drink.

Here you can see the super simple instructions. Right there is the part that tells you to....um. Well, there is a stick in some goo. Also a few arrows as to say "this" or "that" and of course the "put someone's finger in this part"

Sure, business as usual.

Here we have the bag that contains an assortment of packets and small plastic bucket type things. It says "hamburger sheet." You know, because it is...the...hamburger sheet?... WTF.

Alright! Now I get this. It says "smoosh some goo on this blue square and cut it into two pieces. Then you should tape stuff to a cup and make something to put fries in." Duh. That all seems way too obvious. Right? I mean, what am I an idiot? (Perchance)  So maybe there was a few steps that I was missing. Luckily I found a tutorial on the ole youtube that walked me thru making my happy kitchen cheese burger meal. Before we get to that though I'd like to point out a few things. First of all, the video is significantly shorter than it took me to make this snack. All in all it took me 30-40 minutes. Secondly,  I didn't know if this was candy or supposed to taste like what it is emulating until I actually put it in my mouth. Thirdly, rhymes with turdly. (Not important. Just skip that last one.)

So here is my finished product. Kinda cute right? However looks can be deceiving. (Especially with food.) My first inkling that this wasn't going to just taste like cookies was that when I microwaved the fries mixture it smelled like potato. Like fake potato or reconstituted to say the least. My heart kind of sank a bit and not just because I knew that the tiny fries were going to be cold in 30 minutes when I finished making my burgers, soda, and ecoutremonts. It was because I really wanted this to be a good experience. Powder that you mix with water and microwave into burgers and fries sounds as tasty as a summer bus seat. Here is the tutorial:

So how was it? Well, I thought that the fry was disgusting. It tasted like a Pringle kept in a freshly jogged in shoe. S however said it tasted fine. The soda was exactly like a powder that you add water to and it fizzes and tastes vaguely of cola. I bet everyone can picture that one accurately. Now the burgers. Pardon me, the cheese burgers. As the video showed, this kit comes with "ketchup/catsup" slime. So for the benefit of really getting the experience I nibbled one burger without the slime. It tasted like a dense bread with almost a pencil eraser texture. For a moment I breathed a sigh of relief. Then the eraser bread took on a finish of cheap burger. Thankfully the cheese was nonexistent as I was really grossed out by that particular powder-sludge transformation. So imagine eating a piece of bread with an eraser texture that seems fine but leaves a cheap burger taste in your mouth. MMMMM.

At that point I really wanted to stop. I knew that the red slime was not going to work in my favor even in the slightest. Nothing good was going to come from this. However I knew what I needed to do. So I closed my eyes and took a nibble all while trying not to gag. As anticipated it tasted like a burger eraser with the sweetest horrid tomato flavor on it. My mouth wanted little to do with it and my throat just said "No friggin' way! You expect me to swallow eraser burgers? Then you better get ready for the big D because stomach has also said no to the processing of said burger bread eraser." I spit it into the garbage which was the one step of this product that I think should be clearly printed on the box.

I give this snack a 1.5-maybe only wear workout pants when you are actually working out.(You might say that isn't convenient but I say that the way people are turning regular public places into a weird shaped butt festival is inconvenient.)-out of 5.

Thanks for your time and I hope to see you next week.

(You know the whole weird cat doll portion of that youtube clip just isn't sitting well with me....  I don't know how you feel about it.)