How do you say that again?

It’s one thing to wrap your tongue around the ridiculously tasty fare that is Japanese food but try doing the same with the multi-syllabic names of these sumptuous dishes.  Okonomiyaki!  Sukiyaki! Chawamushi!  Jakariko, Kaki no tane and Hapitan!  The list is dreadfully long.  You may be wondering, ‘Hmm, I’ve never heard of the last three’.  That’s because they’re served up in plastic bags and containers, rather than on restaurant tables and hands are preferable to a pair of chopsticks when handling them.  Japanese Junk Food is what they boastfully claim to be.  Who said chips and crackers couldn’t have frustratingly interesting names as well?

The only country I believe to rival New Zealand’s supermarket confectionery aisles is Japan.  This country has proven to be more than capable of churning out the kinds of snacks that the West has long been known for.  Yes, even in Japan, the diabetic coma inducing, artery wall narrowing and waistline expanding snack foods are mouth-wateringly enticing.  It’s a complete mystery to me, how these people manage to maintain their enviously thin frames.

They have a delectable range of chocolate for the sweet toothed, and while the green tea flavour maybe an acquired taste (just like Milo chocolate is, which I still don’t get), you have to applaud their efforts for sheer variety. 

For those of us who love to get inebriated while munching on a bowl of salty chips and nuts, look no further than Japan’s range of ‘beer’ essentials.  Japanese people are the first to tell you, that these snacks are loaded and saturated with things that are hardly beneficial to the old vitals.   Armed with this knowledge you still can’t help but consume a truckload of the stuff. 

Jakariko (or Jagarico as printed on the back label) is a cutely packaged cup of potato sticks which I soon became obsessed with.  My favourite of the three flavours was ‘Salada’ of course because when stacked up next to ‘Butter’ and ‘Cheese’ it was by far the healthiest option.   Side note:  Never suffer fools, unless of course that fool happens to be you. 

Tearing open the lid in one swift motion, you can barely contain your excitement.  In a semi-reclined position, with one hand you hold the cup atop your ever expanding girth, while your other hand automatically becomes like an assembly line pincer, picking up one potato stick at a time and with pinpoint accuracy, placing it into your face. 

Grab a spot of grass somewhere, sit down and kick back...alone.   Unless you’ve brought extra provisions, there’s simply not enough in one cup to share between two people and the last thing you want is to be accused of being stingy for God loves a cheerful giver.  However at around 135 yen (roughly $1.60 NZD) a pop, it hardly requires you to remortgage your house.  I’m sure your friends will be overjoyed at your generous offer to shout the first round!

It leaves very little greasy residue on your fingers, freeing you up to do the things you think no one else notices you doing like checking your phone, touching your hair, smoothing your brows and obsessively, compulsively checking your phone several more, ten or so times.  People are ALWAYS watching, didn’t you know that?

Verdict:  A quick, convenient and most satisfying snack that staves off hunger until your next proper meal.      

Kaki no tane is a combination of peanuts and some rather thin looking, air filled pellets called senbei made to resemble the seeds of a kaki or persimmon.  Unsurprisingly, senbei is made from rice.  
I swear the things that Asia can do and has done with this staple crop blows my mind.  The humble rice seed is the original Transformer to be sure!  A mildly spicy soy flavour is added to the senbei.  Grab a handful of this winning combo, and toss them into your mouth.  The senbei by far outnumber the peanuts and I initially thought that this was a bit odd, perhaps a budget constraint of some sort, but after munching through a fair share of packets, I’ve come to the conclusion that the ratio of senbei to peanut is perfect.   It’s the snack world’s version of Dancing with the Stars, really.  Pairing up the slender and exotic senbei with the stocky but somewhat socially awkward peanut is a combination that is sure to thrill audiences everywhere. Together they’re magic.  Separately…well it’s just a trumped up rice cracker that’ll give you gas and something you feed monkeys, when you’ve got nothing better on offer. 

Warning: Be sure when tossing pieces into your mouth that you don’t then proceed to choke. 

Last but certainly by no means least is the packet of Hapitan, which is a loosely fit transliteration of ‘Happy Time’ (or maybe it's just a coincidence) and be assured it is just that.  These are individually-wrapped, rice snacks, bursting with flavour (and calories).  Eyes roll.  Again with the rice.  Yes, again with the rice. 

I’m about to challenge a long held belief with regards to food texture.  If it’s crisp, then it’s fresh.  And if it’s fresh, then it must be good for you.  No.  You can take a Hapitan rice cake, which is the size of a butter scotch finger, snap it in half, and think ‘wow, that’s crisp’ and you’d be correct.  It doesn’t smell or look stale, so it must be fresh.  Again two out of two, you’re doing well.  But do not draw any further conclusions from this observation.  Yes they are crisp, and fresh, but NO they are not good for you.   

Please do not confuse this as some kind of convoluted Public Health Announcement either, because it isn’t.  I absolutely love these things!  They’re very tasty, and you can never stop at just one.  But I might as well staple them to my butt, cos that’s where they’ll end up.  Damn it.  Hapitan is surprisingly sweet when you bite into it, but it’s also salty as you would expect it to be.  Not sure how they accomplish this but the result is nothing short of sinful! 

Opening up a bright orange packet of Hapitan, and taking out one snack, you quickly remove the clear wrapping around it.  In three small, but quickly successive bites, the tasty rice cake is no more.  Thus begins a disturbingly hypnotic ritual that you feel compelled to engage in and see to the very end.  You scrunch up the clear wrapping with your fingers for a few seconds, and then set it aside as you eye up another appetizing rice cake.  After a while, you look down and notice the growing mound of clear wrappers.  As the packet empties, the mountain rises.  It’s quite a spectacle to see once you’ve finished.  You feel an almost overwhelming sense of guilt that you’ve single-handedly demolished an entire family sized packet, but then you gaze admiringly upon the ‘crystal’ mountain you’ve literally ‘eaten’ into existence (and christened ‘Little Fuji san’), and you think to yourself, oh well…at least the wrapping’s not edible. 

You savour this brief moment of glory before you sink once again into the chaos that is life.  Then, quite unexpectedly, even for you, your arm suddenly becomes a sledgehammer that you wield with surprising force and for no apparent reason you mercilessly crush the poor crystal mountain as it scatters in all directions on the hard table.  You quickly begin to shovel it all back into the empty orange packet (that only minutes before held nothing but hope and sunshine) as a pathetically inadequate offering to appease the Recycling Gods.  Destruction is often senseless and a fog of melancholy slowly creeps up to burden your weak shoulders. 

Hmmm, quickly dispensing with the theatrics, you remind yourself that you are dealing with junk food after all, and this realisation is a soothing balm for your wretched soul.  Cos it’s not like you ate the last packet on earth now, is it? 

Junk food is easily attainable, affordable, addictive and ultimately unhealthy.  But we know all that, don’t we? And since when has that ever stopped us?  An item on an endangered list, it is not.  There’s no denying that it’s scrumptiously tasty.  You’d be mad (and in the minority) to look away.  So if you’re going to indulge anyway, you might as well reach for the top shelf and break open a packet of ‘Happy Times’.  Of course there’s no pressure to get into the mountain-building business, as I’m sure 99.9 percent of consumers, simply eat it. 

Rice cakes in any other country taste like untreated plywood.  Japan is most definitely the exception.  To market them as a health food would be laughable.  But they’re the perfect snack to go with a side of lemon… and vodka.