Month #11 - Spain Snacks

 Yes, this month's snack nation is Spain. I don't have any pre-conceived notions about Spanish snacks other than that, perhaps, they'll be spicy.

Let's start with facts...

• Restaurante Botin in Madrid is the oldest restaurant in the world. When it opened in 1725, you were expected to bring your own ingredients. The oven has supposedly been continuously burning for all that time.
• You can tell how popular a bar is by the trash on the floor. It is a Spanish custom for customers to throw napkins, olive pits and other trash onto the floor.
• The Spanish National Anthem has no lyrics.
• There is a drink in Spanish called kalimotxo, it is red wine mixed with Coca-Cola.
• At the restaurant El Diablo in Lanzarote, food is cooked via active volcano.

Let's go...

1. Acho - Fried Egg Flavored Potato Chips

Review:

Starting with a bang! In all the history of Month of Snacks, I don't know of any packaging/label that's filled me with as much excitement as this one. Fried Egg Potato Chips... Fried Egg. This is weird, this is crazy, this is not so off-the-wall that it can't possibly be good... it even has a shiny, picturesque white and yellow egg calling out from the front of the bag. 

When you hear the term "Fried Egg Flavored Potato Chips," do you have trouble imagining what that would taste like? I'm trying to figure out if it's just me and I lack sufficient imagination. Because tasting these, they taste EXACTLY like fried egg flavored potato chips. Exactly. I even thought I should have bacon flavored chips to go along with them, as in a breakfast. I have no idea what to expect and then one bite and I think, "That's exactly what I should have expected."

I don't have the guts to unabashedly recommend them, they are weird and probably do require a "trying on a dare" mentality, but that being said, I think they're legitimately good and pretty fun.

2. Doble M 

Translation: Honey and Butter Flavored Corn Puffs

Review: 

It was just last month that I talked about my love for Korean Honey Butter Potato Chips, here we are with another Honey Butter snack. Is it fate?

These are the material and consistency of the regular Cheese Puffs you've had a million times. Except you substitute orange cheese flavor for popcorny flavor with some sweetness. I'll be honest, the flavor took a little time to get used to but overall I'd say pretty good. They really aren't too far off from Corn Pops or just regular popcorn, really. Not bad.

3. Conguitos - Peanut Cream

Review:

It's been a while since I had a candy bar.

This package has two "bars" - each is a string of slightly pyramidal chocolate pockets similar to a Caramello, but peanut butter instead of caramel. But not exactly peanut butter...

The inside is a crunchy nougat thing that represents peanut butter flavor. It's not miles away from a Butterfinger, for reference. Oh! It might be closer to a Twix, actually. And it's got the "two bars in one" thing in common too! 

The Europeans mock the ubiquity of peanut butter in American snacks, it's interesting to find they have such a candy. I don't have any strong opinion on this either way. It's good but there's nothing exotic about it, you don't need to go to Spain to eat a Twix.

4. Vidal - Gummi Sour Kiwi

Review:

Here in the U.S. we have sour patch kids and "ultra-sour" candy and all that. And so these seem very American, very much in the vein of what you might expect. Very kiwi-ey, very sour, very sugary. 

Don't have much to say... Pretty good.

5. Lacasitas Gold

Review:

These look a lot like M&Ms, etc. The look like this:

So, it's pretty interesting that the shell has a slight Orange Tic Tac flavor to me. That was unexpected. The packaging says "White Chocolate Candy with Caramel Flavor" and I wouldn't dispute that too much but, to me, I'm getting a Butter Rum flavor from it. Perhaps that's because Butter Rum is made up of white chocolate and caramel? Eh, no, though I can't get solid information. Butter Rum seems to only exist as a flavor for Lifesavers and based on the name, I assume derives from Buttered Rum, a Christmas drink with rum (obviously). But there is also Rum Butter which is an English Christmas spread. Rum Butter, for what it's worth, is made with rum, brown sugar and cinnamon.

Going further, it started to taste more like chocolate. Perhaps it's the Orange Tic Tac mixed with chocolate becomes Butter Rum. This whole entry is just a huge mistake. Unmitigated Disaster.

Final verdict... If you haven't had Reese's Pieces lately, I'd recommend those first - Reese's Pieces are magical - but these are a good second place and I'd recommend them.

---

The previous "Most Like America" post was Israel but Spain has now overtaken them for first. These are very similar to the kinds of things that are released and become successful here. I'm very surprised. Keep in mind, I don't think it's a bad thing, just bad for the "adventure" aspect of the blog.

Overall, very strong showing, there wasn't a single negative food. Somewhat anti-climatic due to the best item being the first but... And I'm going to latch on to that one, the most exotic entry, the egg chips, and offer them to people I know to see how they react.

See you next month for the last month.

Random Frankenstein Thoughts

 Today I was wondering why Frankenstein's (Frankenstein's monster's) head was flat. I don't remember it from the novel and it seems like such a random thing. Where did it come from? Who decided and why?

Well it originates in the movie "Frankenstein" (1931) but specifically un-credited make-up artist Jack Pierce. Says Pierce:

“I discovered there are six ways a surgeon can cut the skull, and I figured Dr. Frankenstein, who was not a practicing surgeon, would take the easiest. That is, he would cut the top of the skull straight across like a pot lid, hinge it, pop the brain in, and clamp it tight. That’s the reason I decided to made the Monster’s head square and flat like a box.”

And I'm so impressed by that. I just don't imagine make-up artists putting that much thought into their craft. They likely don't anymore.

Ok but why is he green? That's apparently still due to Pierce but the explanation is more complex. According to this article, his skin is described as yellow in the book. But Pierce made him green because:

The color sensitivity of the film stock used in the 1930s meant that certain shades of green would show up on screen as a ghostly white. Karloff’s green makeup, then, both tinted the actor’s skin to a cadaverous pallor and gave him a decidedly different complexion than the rest of the cast.

But, of course, the movie is in black and white so why would that matter? Well, when it was time to make color promotional materials, artists used Boris Karloff in his full makeup as reference and so he was depicted to the public as green. And the rest is history.

Another quick Frankenstein-adjacent fun fact... Fred Gwynne, in making his Herman Munster character, based Herman's physical mannerisms on his mother. And it amazes me how I never noticed before, but if you look at him again, it just jumps out at you how feminine his physicality is. Not just feminine but maternal. In retrospect it completely makes sense.

Late Night - James Downey's Favorite Moments (Part 2)

 

See Part 1 here.

10 MPH - Candies From Around the World

 

At one point I was feeling pretty good, thinking I had already tried most of these. But then it keeps going and going and my percentage kept dropping.

Sure, I may be accused of taking it too seriously, but I really want it clearly stated what they're tasting so I can try them myself. The purposely sloppy nature of 10 MPH strikes again.

Duaffy M&S - Rocky IV

 I said no one else had gotten to "Rocky IV," well now they have...

Did we really have robits in the 80s?

There's a running motif(?) throughout "Rocky IV" that I never noticed before. "Rocky IV" is about our ability to change.

When Rocky is trying to convince Apollo not to fight Drago:

Rocky: Let's face it, we got to change sometime.

Apollo: I don't want to change! I like who I am!

and then "You and me, we don't have a choice"

Later, Adrian tries to convince Rocky not to fight:

Adrian: Why can't you change your thinking, everybody else does.

Rocky: Because I'm a fighter [...] we can't change what we are.

Adrian: Yes, you can.

Rocky: Can't change anything, Adrian. All we can do is go with what we are.

And then after the fight, Rocky gives his speech:

"During this fight, I seen a lot of changin' - the way youse felt about me and the way I felt about you. [...] If I can change... and you can change... everybody can change!"

[And when it's time to change, you've got to rearrange.]

This running theme underscores the movie as a allegory for the Cold War itself. Rocky is told that fighting Drago means certain suicide, why is he willing to risk "everything"? But he continues on the path toward the fight, believing that there was no alternative. But the US and Soviet Union don't have to stubbornly march toward mutually assured destruction - it isn't destined, we can choose not to fight, we have a choice.

Late Show Writer's Favorite Moments

 Late Show writer Rodney Rothman recalls his favorite moments on the Late Show:

The thumbnail tells the story.

This video comes with a regret. I absolutely regret not remembering all the fake bands/musical guests. As a religious viewer, I know I saw most of them but I only remember Fresh Step. I have a theory as to why. I don't think there's any way I would determine a bad musical from a real musical. Even the real ones feel like parodies to me. I mean, look at the clips, would you do any better? I also don't remember Fresh Step being on more than once.

And Now My Fresh Step Story...

I'm watching the Late Show and their musical guest is a boy band "Fresh Step." I'm horrified but boy bands were not a new thing on the Late Show so "it is what it is." When the performance is over it's the time when Dave goes over and shakes hands with the guests and says "that was great," "thanks for coming," etc. Except he doesn't, he stays at his desk. At his desk he says "Fresh Step, everyone" or something and it goes to commercial. Dave ALWAYS walks over to greet the guest - always. Sometimes it gets edited out for time but that's what happens every time.

As the kind of viewer that obsessed over every detail of the Late Show, I sensed something was wrong behind the scenes. Dave stayed far away from them like they were the plague. I thought it was pretty obvious he must have hated them. One theory I came up with was that he didn't want to have them on at all but got overruled and was mad about it. 

I always remembered that moment as one of the interesting behind-the-scenes mysteries until many years later I found out the band was fake and... well, I can't explain why Dave wouldn't shake their hands to sell the bit completely... but at least he wasn't being rude and there wasn't some power struggle.