Top 5 Weirdest Japanese Snacks and Drinks

Friday, November 25, 2011

5. Scallops and Mayo Flavored Chips

When I was a kid, we used to have these Ketchup favored crisps and even then I thought of that as a little bit weird, so imagine how I must feel about scallops and mayonnaise flavored chips from Japan. The answer: somewhere between “Ghwaa…?” and “Oh sweet lord, no…”
The fact of the matter is that the snack business in Japan is humongolarge. Unless you have literally millions of dollars to throw into a marketing campaign that will employ a new type of science ray that injects commercials straight into people’s dreams, the only way for your brand to stand out over there is coming up with really bizarre flavors. And thus, the Scallops & Mayonnaise Chips from Calbee were born. Just be thankful they didn’t go with their other idea: Dog Turd Crisps.
4. Bizarre Pepsi Flavors


Same as with the snack business, you really need a gimmick in order for your drink to stand out east of China. This applies even to giants as Pepsi, who during the course of several years came up with such Japan-exclusive Pepsi flavors as: Yogurt, Cucumber and Shiso (which is something like a cross between basil and mint).
None of those really stuck around, proving that even the complex Japanese pallet could not handle such atrocities against God for long, but who knows what the future might bring? Pepsi is undeniably second to Coca Cola in Japan (they even sell Coca Cola brand water over there, believe it or not) so they will probably keep coming up with more and more original flavors. Pepsi Kitten Blood perhaps? Who knows?
3. Roasted Baby Crabs

These are actual crab babies we are talking about. Roasted crab babies. It might just be me but I keep getting this image of a Daddy, Mommy and Junior crab playing together in their underwater house when suddenly the kid is yanked out in a net and roasted alive for the gluttonous needs of sadistic Japanese. It’s sadder than 20 orphans watching “Bambi” for the first time. Let’s just move to the next item…
2. Eel Soda

The “Surging Eel” fizzy pop is a carbonated yellow liquid made out of *SPOILERS* eel. It is produced by the Japanese Tobacco Company. No, it doesn’t make sense even to me, so don’t worry about it.
Now, I do have to acknowledge that the eel is a delicacy in Japan, but bottling and selling it as a soft drink has to be against some kind of law. Hell, if not court laws then I am willing to invoke the law of God if I have to. The western equivalent of this monstrosity would be… I don’t know, to bottle an entire Thanksgiving dinner in soda form? Which of course would never happen because no one is that crazy and…
1. Meat Flavored Ice-cream

You see those? Those are, in order, Beef Tongue, Horse and Chicken Wings flavored ice-cream. HORSE!
There is absolutely nothing I could think of to excuse this. So OK, beef tongue is quite often eaten in Japan. It tastes simply delicious when cooked over some charcoals and washed down with a beer. Chicken wings? KFC is everywhere here. Then there is HORSE…!
I just don’t get it.
How in the world did any of those end up as ice-cream? Now that I think about it, I am starting to fear for my life. Because you know, if already the Japanese are scrapping the bottom of the idea barrel for new meat themed ice cream like HORSE and all, how long will it take them to try and package us, the foreigners, into the mix? Filthy-Foreigner Ice Cream… I can already see it.
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