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.

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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.