Junk food from another continent! A thrilling tale
A couple of months ago I talked about differences between Finland and the US with 
thefourthvine, and somehow the conversation ended with TFV sending me a box of common snacks and other kind of junk food from the US. And then she sent me another box full of sweets! She amazing. :) I've never been to the US but I'm familiar with many brand names there, so seeing and tasting the things she sent has been a curious experience of familiar and new.
Here are notes on some of the things she sent. I figured some of you might be interested in reading them, as well, so I'm posting publicly. What follows is my personal journey of confusion, discovery and cultural prejudice, starring Skittles, Twinkies, and Ritz Crackers, among other things!
Skittles
Skittles have fannish significance! Bill buys them in a THTV episode (Shopping with Bill). I think the twins like Skittles. Maybe especially the red ones. Or maybe the red Skittles box Bill bought contains certain kind of Skittles (but not merely red ones), I don't know. Anyway, I got a little bag of Skittles and now I've tasted five Skittles colours/flavours!
Orange: orange (in my language the colour and the fruit have different names, btw). I like these well enough. They don't taste exactly like oranges but there's a faintly citrus-like taste that's nice.
Yellow: lemon. These are all right.
Red: strawberry. These are all right. Sometimes I think they're almost too sweet somehow, like there's not enough edge, but mostly I like them. (I thought at first that they're too sweet, but maybe I got used to them?)
Purple: grape. The flavour is very distinct and I like it. It doesn't exactly taste like grape, but it tastes exactly like I'd expect purple candy to taste like...
Green: lime. These are my favourites, for some reason. The tangy, refreshing flavour suits the sugary candy.
A friend and I concluded that Skittles are surprisingly alike to Finnish candy; they could be sold here, and actually it's a wonder they're not. We've got M&M's, for example.
Twinkies
I've read and heard about Twinkies a lot -- I think Rodney even calls John a Twinkie in some SGA fic? -- but I didn't know what they were like. I mean, I knew that they were bar-shaped junk food or candy but nothing else. I vaguely thought they'd have a chocolate cover and something crunchy in them. Well, it turns out that Twinkies are more like cake. We have cupcakes (I think that's the right word) that are much like Twinkies -- soft and cake-like, light yellow, with white gooey stuff inside.
I actually liked the taste of Twinkies more than most of the other things: they're sweet and mild. But the list of ingredients kind of frightens me. I also feel biased against American junk food. It feels somehow more junk-like than ours. I think it's mostly prejudice. It seems that at least for some of our junk food the list of ingredients is shorter but I don't know if it's possible to compare them fairly.
Pop Tarts
These are also really familiar to me but I didn't know what they were, exactly. I remember that in some Gilmore Girls episode Rory put Pop Tarts in the toaster for breakfast. I was really surprised that they turned out to be so soft. Isn't the toaster covered in frosting once you're done?
I got two flavours: strawberry and chocolate fudge.
Strawberry. First of all, I experienced some cultural shock when I realised that they're sweet -- and yet people eat them for breakfast! I eat rye bread (it's almost black. It's not sweet.) and oatmeal porridge for breakfast. People do eat other kind of things for breakfast here, though, for example a sweet pastry with coffee. But I don't think we have anything like Pop Tarts.
My friends all said that they're really sweet and I was confused because I don't think they're that sweet, not candy-sweet -- but I guess they meant that Pop Tarts are sweet for a plate of dough that's covered with filling and frosting. Anyway, I don't think there's anything like Pop Tarts here. I kind of expected them to be sweeter, with a sugary cake-like dough.
Chocolate. Another cultural shock was that there are vitamins and minerals in these. "Good Source of 7 Vitamins & Minerals," boasts the cover of chocolate PopTarts. My friends and I were all "o_0" because it seemed so weird that something such a sweet and obviously (so we thought!) unhealthy snack type of product would be advertised like this. We do have products like yoghurt that contain added vitamins (maybe not minerals that much, at least I've never noticed any mention of minerals), but not candy or pastry.
I liked the chocolate Pop Tarts more than the strawberry-flavoured.
Ritz Crackers 'n Cheese Dip
I liked these perhaps the most of all the things I got. The crackers are really salty, much more so than any crackers that are sold here (or at least any that I've bought or tasted), and I wouldn't have minded a little less salt, but I liked these with cheese. The cheese... well. A friend felt deeply dubious of cheese that doesn't need to be kept in a fridge, and she has a point: we don't have cheese like this here. I liked it, though. It's artificial ("made with REAL Kraft cheese" didn't impress me, and every time I saw the text "naturally and artificially flavored" I thought cynically that they'd added a little bit of something natural that you wouldn't even be able to taste just so they could say that it isn't all artificially flavoured) but good.
The packaging of the crackers bewildered us. There's nothing here, I don't think, that's sold like this: a box containing six plastic packs that each have a plastic knife for the cheese. The packaging is very wasteful here, as well, at times, with individual packs, but not for food, I don't think... and the little plastic knife raised eyebrows as well. But I think those may be coming our way, too. Ice cream is already sold with a spoon, sometimes (although at least in the nineties or so it was a wooden spoon).
Chips
I told TFV that we have a similar type of biscuit to Oreos here before she sent me the box. Then I got the box and opened it and there was a small bag of chips in it called Doritos, and I was surprised -- maybe I hadn't known Doritos are chips, or I'd forgotten. And then I tried to remember if I'd told TFV that we have something like Oreos here, or that we have something like Doritos here, thinking of Oreos. I told her that I may have got the two mixed up and she said it's like confusing lettuce with ice cream. Hee! Well, I won't confuse them anymore, now that I've seen actual Doritos! (...at least I think I won't confuse them anymore. They're still really similar. There are Os and Rs in both names.)
I got a lot of other kind of chips too. Some impressions:
Doritos. Very similar to taco chips that we have here. The bright red and green specks were really different, though. I was very surprised to see such bright colours on something that is supposed to be eaten.
Pringles Ranch. We have Pringles here, but not this flavour, and I suspect that our Pringles are different in other ways, too. I'm not sure. All of the American chips felt saltier than ours. A curiosity: both the Pringles and the Doritos packs advertise multi-grain chips, and every time I see the text, I feel so dubious! "Multi-grain... potato chips?" Hee. Also, the ingredients lists are frighteningly long. The most popular (or at least the oldest, or most familiar to me) brand of chips here has got three ingredients: potato, vegetable oil and salt.
Cheetos. One of my friends liked them and I liked them too -- the artificial cheese flavour appeals to us. Another friend didn't like these but he liked all the other chips, perhaps because he likes strong flavours all in all. All of the chips tasted different from what we're used to eating here, but still similar enough (unlike, for example, Pop Tarts, for which it was difficult to come up with an equivalent that would be sold here).
I think that's enough for today, but I'll write another post or two about the rest of them soon, hopefully!
My conclusions: I was reminded of a SGA story called "But Where Would They Live?" It's a story where Rodney is a unicorn and John is a rainbow. It's crack but also so poignant -- imagine, TH folks, if one of the twins was a unicorn and the other a rainbow! How would they be together? And that's the question (basically) in the title, as well. It may be a reference to something, I don't know -- enlighten me if you do know -- but I really like it, anyway. It's so evocative.
Well, after my junk food experiments, I've been thinking about my on and off dream of visiting the US some day (I'm afraid of travelling but still, I'd love to go some day and maybe see some of you who live there!), and I've been thinking, "But what would I eat?" (The obligatory TH follow-up question: Reis? Yes, I'm kind of unable to think and write about things without referring to different fandoms where I am or have been in. I believe all of you will understand.) Pop Tarts instead of rye bread for breakfast! I don't know if I'd survive. And foreign food is so... foreign! I think this has been a valuable lesson for me since I hadn't figured that out before this.
Anyway, of course this is junk food and I still have no idea of the variety of food that people eat in the US. It has been fascinating to taste all of these things, though. I've tasted everything with my friends, too, and we've analysed things and compared cultures. Very educating. And it's been fascinating especially because most of these things are really familiar to me -- all those names that I recognise -- and yet I haven't known what they really are. Now I've tasted them! Next time someone eats Skittles in a fic, or a Twinkie, or Pop Tarts are mentioned in a post, I know what they're like! *beams* Thank you, TFV!
thefourthvine, and somehow the conversation ended with TFV sending me a box of common snacks and other kind of junk food from the US. And then she sent me another box full of sweets! She amazing. :) I've never been to the US but I'm familiar with many brand names there, so seeing and tasting the things she sent has been a curious experience of familiar and new.
Here are notes on some of the things she sent. I figured some of you might be interested in reading them, as well, so I'm posting publicly. What follows is my personal journey of confusion, discovery and cultural prejudice, starring Skittles, Twinkies, and Ritz Crackers, among other things!
Skittles
Skittles have fannish significance! Bill buys them in a THTV episode (Shopping with Bill). I think the twins like Skittles. Maybe especially the red ones. Or maybe the red Skittles box Bill bought contains certain kind of Skittles (but not merely red ones), I don't know. Anyway, I got a little bag of Skittles and now I've tasted five Skittles colours/flavours!
Orange: orange (in my language the colour and the fruit have different names, btw). I like these well enough. They don't taste exactly like oranges but there's a faintly citrus-like taste that's nice.
Yellow: lemon. These are all right.
Red: strawberry. These are all right. Sometimes I think they're almost too sweet somehow, like there's not enough edge, but mostly I like them. (I thought at first that they're too sweet, but maybe I got used to them?)
Purple: grape. The flavour is very distinct and I like it. It doesn't exactly taste like grape, but it tastes exactly like I'd expect purple candy to taste like...
Green: lime. These are my favourites, for some reason. The tangy, refreshing flavour suits the sugary candy.
A friend and I concluded that Skittles are surprisingly alike to Finnish candy; they could be sold here, and actually it's a wonder they're not. We've got M&M's, for example.
Twinkies
I've read and heard about Twinkies a lot -- I think Rodney even calls John a Twinkie in some SGA fic? -- but I didn't know what they were like. I mean, I knew that they were bar-shaped junk food or candy but nothing else. I vaguely thought they'd have a chocolate cover and something crunchy in them. Well, it turns out that Twinkies are more like cake. We have cupcakes (I think that's the right word) that are much like Twinkies -- soft and cake-like, light yellow, with white gooey stuff inside.
I actually liked the taste of Twinkies more than most of the other things: they're sweet and mild. But the list of ingredients kind of frightens me. I also feel biased against American junk food. It feels somehow more junk-like than ours. I think it's mostly prejudice. It seems that at least for some of our junk food the list of ingredients is shorter but I don't know if it's possible to compare them fairly.
Pop Tarts
These are also really familiar to me but I didn't know what they were, exactly. I remember that in some Gilmore Girls episode Rory put Pop Tarts in the toaster for breakfast. I was really surprised that they turned out to be so soft. Isn't the toaster covered in frosting once you're done?
I got two flavours: strawberry and chocolate fudge.
Strawberry. First of all, I experienced some cultural shock when I realised that they're sweet -- and yet people eat them for breakfast! I eat rye bread (it's almost black. It's not sweet.) and oatmeal porridge for breakfast. People do eat other kind of things for breakfast here, though, for example a sweet pastry with coffee. But I don't think we have anything like Pop Tarts.
My friends all said that they're really sweet and I was confused because I don't think they're that sweet, not candy-sweet -- but I guess they meant that Pop Tarts are sweet for a plate of dough that's covered with filling and frosting. Anyway, I don't think there's anything like Pop Tarts here. I kind of expected them to be sweeter, with a sugary cake-like dough.
Chocolate. Another cultural shock was that there are vitamins and minerals in these. "Good Source of 7 Vitamins & Minerals," boasts the cover of chocolate PopTarts. My friends and I were all "o_0" because it seemed so weird that something such a sweet and obviously (so we thought!) unhealthy snack type of product would be advertised like this. We do have products like yoghurt that contain added vitamins (maybe not minerals that much, at least I've never noticed any mention of minerals), but not candy or pastry.
I liked the chocolate Pop Tarts more than the strawberry-flavoured.
Ritz Crackers 'n Cheese Dip
I liked these perhaps the most of all the things I got. The crackers are really salty, much more so than any crackers that are sold here (or at least any that I've bought or tasted), and I wouldn't have minded a little less salt, but I liked these with cheese. The cheese... well. A friend felt deeply dubious of cheese that doesn't need to be kept in a fridge, and she has a point: we don't have cheese like this here. I liked it, though. It's artificial ("made with REAL Kraft cheese" didn't impress me, and every time I saw the text "naturally and artificially flavored" I thought cynically that they'd added a little bit of something natural that you wouldn't even be able to taste just so they could say that it isn't all artificially flavoured) but good.
The packaging of the crackers bewildered us. There's nothing here, I don't think, that's sold like this: a box containing six plastic packs that each have a plastic knife for the cheese. The packaging is very wasteful here, as well, at times, with individual packs, but not for food, I don't think... and the little plastic knife raised eyebrows as well. But I think those may be coming our way, too. Ice cream is already sold with a spoon, sometimes (although at least in the nineties or so it was a wooden spoon).
Chips
I told TFV that we have a similar type of biscuit to Oreos here before she sent me the box. Then I got the box and opened it and there was a small bag of chips in it called Doritos, and I was surprised -- maybe I hadn't known Doritos are chips, or I'd forgotten. And then I tried to remember if I'd told TFV that we have something like Oreos here, or that we have something like Doritos here, thinking of Oreos. I told her that I may have got the two mixed up and she said it's like confusing lettuce with ice cream. Hee! Well, I won't confuse them anymore, now that I've seen actual Doritos! (...at least I think I won't confuse them anymore. They're still really similar. There are Os and Rs in both names.)
I got a lot of other kind of chips too. Some impressions:
Doritos. Very similar to taco chips that we have here. The bright red and green specks were really different, though. I was very surprised to see such bright colours on something that is supposed to be eaten.
Pringles Ranch. We have Pringles here, but not this flavour, and I suspect that our Pringles are different in other ways, too. I'm not sure. All of the American chips felt saltier than ours. A curiosity: both the Pringles and the Doritos packs advertise multi-grain chips, and every time I see the text, I feel so dubious! "Multi-grain... potato chips?" Hee. Also, the ingredients lists are frighteningly long. The most popular (or at least the oldest, or most familiar to me) brand of chips here has got three ingredients: potato, vegetable oil and salt.
Cheetos. One of my friends liked them and I liked them too -- the artificial cheese flavour appeals to us. Another friend didn't like these but he liked all the other chips, perhaps because he likes strong flavours all in all. All of the chips tasted different from what we're used to eating here, but still similar enough (unlike, for example, Pop Tarts, for which it was difficult to come up with an equivalent that would be sold here).
I think that's enough for today, but I'll write another post or two about the rest of them soon, hopefully!
My conclusions: I was reminded of a SGA story called "But Where Would They Live?" It's a story where Rodney is a unicorn and John is a rainbow. It's crack but also so poignant -- imagine, TH folks, if one of the twins was a unicorn and the other a rainbow! How would they be together? And that's the question (basically) in the title, as well. It may be a reference to something, I don't know -- enlighten me if you do know -- but I really like it, anyway. It's so evocative.
Well, after my junk food experiments, I've been thinking about my on and off dream of visiting the US some day (I'm afraid of travelling but still, I'd love to go some day and maybe see some of you who live there!), and I've been thinking, "But what would I eat?" (The obligatory TH follow-up question: Reis? Yes, I'm kind of unable to think and write about things without referring to different fandoms where I am or have been in. I believe all of you will understand.) Pop Tarts instead of rye bread for breakfast! I don't know if I'd survive. And foreign food is so... foreign! I think this has been a valuable lesson for me since I hadn't figured that out before this.
Anyway, of course this is junk food and I still have no idea of the variety of food that people eat in the US. It has been fascinating to taste all of these things, though. I've tasted everything with my friends, too, and we've analysed things and compared cultures. Very educating. And it's been fascinating especially because most of these things are really familiar to me -- all those names that I recognise -- and yet I haven't known what they really are. Now I've tasted them! Next time someone eats Skittles in a fic, or a Twinkie, or Pop Tarts are mentioned in a post, I know what they're like! *beams* Thank you, TFV!