"crunchy" news and stories

My friend and fellow blogger Joe Distefano is always going on about Asian snacks and candy. We try to beat out the other in finding the best, strangest, and tastiest Asian snack to munch on and talk about. I remember when I dared him to buy a bag of small candied crabs a few years ago and put them in a candy bowl in his desk at work to see what the reaction would be.

Well, today I ran across a tasty little snack when i was out shopping. I have been suffering from the flu related blues for a few days and had to get out of the house. Most people go shopping for clothes or power tools when they need a pick me up. I go food shopping, especially at ethnic markets. This snack is Asian Best brand "Crispy Snack Sesame Anchovy Fish." They are headless anchovies that are fried, candied, and covered with a chili powder and sesame seed coating.

They look kinda strange, these 1-2 inch long golden, shiny fish all studded with sesame seeds with red hints of chili powder. The smell is slightly fishy but the taste barely makes you think of fish at all. They are crunchy sweet at first, with the sesame taste coming through like those sesame brittle candies. Then the chili burn comes along, followed by a hint of fried fish. They are super tasty little snacks and great beer or cocktail munchies. Surprisingly they are low in fat and calories, and have tons of calcium. I can't wait to put them out as snacks at my next cocktail party.

Protons are the first crunchy tofu soy snacks on the market. They are high in protein and calcium, have soy iso-flavones, iron, and fiber. They're also low in carbs and sodium and have no cholesterol and zero trans fats. Their also natural, organic, vegan, dairy free, gluten free, non GMO, and have no preservatives. WOW! Can you put any more healthy tag words in one paragraph? I'm feeling great just typing this.

They come in six tasty flavors, three sweet and three savory: Backyard Bar-B-Q, Tomato Herb Garden, Chili Lime Fiesta, Lemon Meringue Pie, Maple Syrup Waffle, and Cinnamon Toast. You can eat them plain for a snack, use the savory ones like croutons on soups or salads, and some folks even eat the sweet ones like cereal, in a bowl with milk or soy milk. Mmmm... Mmmm. Sounds mighty tasty to me. Just don't accidentally mix the sweet and savory or you'll be having tomato soup with lemon meringue pie croutons for lunch, and Backyard Bar-B-Q cereal for breakfast. Oh, I'm sooo confused. Just pass me some protons.

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I'm not usually a big fan of cold breakfast cereals and usually will opt for something like oatmeal (steel-cut or regular), pancakes or maybe even fruit salad. I do like breakfast to be simple, though, so I keep a couple boxes of cold cereals around. This weekend, I stumbled upon a box of Post's new Honey Bunches of Oats with Cinnamon Clusters at the supermarket and must confess that the entire box is almost gone after only a few days.

Honey Bunches of Oats consists of three kinds of slightly sweetened whole grain flakes and , in this case, cinnamon coated oat clusters that don't skimp on the cinnamon. The cereal is not overly sweet and reminds me very much of french toast, since I add vanilla and cinnamon to my french toast batter.

This cereal is fantastic, even when eaten dry, as a snack in the afternoon. It's a lighter, more flavorful alternative to granola and worth a taste if you come across a box at the store.

Yesterday's New York Times featured a great account of eating a variety of insects in Thailand's Ubon province. Jennifer Gampell writes about tackling crunchy, salty fried scorpions (right), as well as grasshoppers and crickets. She passes on the large water beetles, but apparently takes a liking to a type of fly, fried with lemongrass and served in a spicy salad of chili and green papaya. Meals like this are abundant at roadside stalls in Ubon, Gampell says. The details of exactly what and where she ate are a little cloudy, however, since English names and locations seem, at times, hard to come by.

The San Francisco Chronicle did a taste test of 9 store brands of prepopped, bagged popcorn that they found around the Bay Area. While microwave popcorn doesn't really take that long to make, the bagged stuff offers even more convenience and instant gratification. Not to mention the fact that opening a bag of it will not leave your kitchen smelling like popcorn for the next 24 hours. The Chronicle's criteria? They looked for flavor and appearance, but the most important quality for the popcorn to have was crunch. If it wasn't crispy, it wasn't worth eating, and not all the brands stacked up. Their top two picks were Whole Foods 365 Organic and O Organics, which is the Safeway store brand. Following the top brands were Erin's (from Andronico's market), Bearitos Lite (from Rainbow) and Trader Joe's. The other four finishers? Let's just say that if the taste tester didn't want them, neither do you.

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