Saturday, May 05, 2007

Caramels! Yum!

The other day while shopping I noticed the store was having a Hokkaido Fair. Long tables set up selling all sorts of snacks, noodles, and teeny dried crabs from the northernmost prefecture. I had left the house with the words of my son echoing in my head, "bring back something exciting...and weird!"

Oh, the luck!

I browsed the caramel table.

There was this one, Rare Chocolate Caramel. By far the best.

Ooooo, and some lovely Corn flavored caramel. Which wasn't too bad, actually.

Red Wine Caramel too! Getting weirder! Kinda tasted like grapes. Perfectly and wonderfully edible.


Then I found the kicker.

Genghis Khan Caramel!!


"Genghis Khan" is sort of a fad right now. It means mutton/lamb, usually served up as yakiniku--a fantastic dining experience wherein you sit at a table with a grill embedded in the middle, coals lit underneath, and order plates of raw meat and vegetables which you cook yourself. Mad Cow Disease rattled Japan quite a bit a few years ago and people decided mutton wasn't so bad after all.

Remember Bernie Bott's Every Flavor Bean from the Harry Potter books/movies? Well, they had a vomit flavored bean which I tried and it was a kind of sweet, indistinct flavor, not too bad. This mutton-flavored caramel, however, tastes EXACTLY like puke. Gag reflex and everything. My son thought I was over reacting. I wasn't back from the toilet when I saw him take the jump and pop one of the vile candies into his mouth. Same thing, face goes blue, retching begins, then the lightening fast reach for the tissue box.

I still have a bunch left...if you want I'll send you one.

Oh, and then I found another flavor that made me giggle...

Bambi Flavor!

No, actually, the name of the brand is Bambi. This is just normal, yummy caramel flavor, not much different than what I got in my bag at Halloween as a kid. J and I had to eat several of these just to erase the vile-ness from the sheep flavored ones.

I can't help wondering about copyright infringement though.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Caramel like that isn't big here. Though, I love to pour caramel syrup over anything available (not lamb!) as well as butterscotch syrup.

The 'normal' ones look the best.

Anonymous said...

As if I wasn't already bummed out enough about all the flush letters Momo and I are getting from places we applied to. Now you're reminding me of all the good eatin' I'm going to miss by not going this summer. My buddy from Vancouver is going to be there, and we were going to see if we could still party like it's 1979 on a hot spring tour of the west coast from Tottori to as far north as we could get before getting arrested. Momo sounds so grown up when she explains why I shouldn't go, but I still hope something dramatic happens (lottery win, ANA sweepstakes prize, etc.)so I can make it.
One of the good things about being here is that I can listen to Coast-to-Coast whenever I think my life isn't so great. I'm listening to a Zeta speak right now. I'm even tempted to go to their web site. http://www.zetatalk.com/
I think it's a good idea to put insane people on the airwaves so that those of us who have doubts about our own sanity at times can make a good comparison. This was actually last night's program rebroadcast at 10:00pm. Tonight's show at 1:00am is about "Breatharian Wiley Brooks claims that he is a 5th dimensional being who derives his nutrition from the air."
http://www.breatharian.com/
I'm feeling better already. "End Zeta Talk"
imomomo

Kappa no He said...

Benjamin: Ooooo, caramel syrup. Never seen that in Japan. But I stock up when we go back to the States.

Imomo: Okay, now I'm going to start posting all sorts of pictures of gorgeous food. If it will tip the scales in favor of you getting on that plane...It's a plan!

If I only knew those lottery numbers...

I actually have a book on "Breatharinism". I use to read it in high school. Sounded like a good diet to me at the time. With an odd sort of enlightenment to boot.

That's a great theory about putting crazy people on the radio to make us feel better. I usually watch the news. Recently here people have taken to killing each other, dismembering the corpses, and then burying the parts in ofuros filled with dirt--which they keep in their apartments.

Crap. I had a great medical question I really wanted to ask you. I'll have to remember and send you an e-mail.

Jeff Draper said...

If the Bambi flavored caramel is a copyright infringement then Disney could always get some Godzilla flavored caramel to stamp it out.

Dawn said...

Mutton flavoured caramel makes me feel queasy just thinking about it. Why do they want to change what works?

Kappa no He said...

Scriptorius: That is brilliant!

Dawn: I actually read somewhere that some people like it!

Leah J. Utas said...

While I'm willing to give almost anything a go (witchittey grub and muktuk no less)I don't know if I could organize the gumption to try caramel mutton. Good for you for trying it.

Kappa no He said...

Leah: You rock! While I would probably try muktuk, witchettey grub would probably do me in once and for all.

Anonymous said...

MMM. . .Bamby flavor ;) Cute stuff. Did you notice the spelling mistakes on the first label?

Eric

Leah J. Utas said...

In the interest of full disclosure, Kappa no He, it was only a slice of witchetty grub and it had been briefly cooked in the ashes of the fire pit before being offered to wussful tourists such as myself. I did see it collected out of the ground, however, so it was the real deal.

Anonymous said...

A friend of mine gave one of those candies without any warning. He thoroughly enjoyed the look on my face as it went through the phases: 1. Slight sweetness-- uhmm yum 2. then the vomit taste kicked in- err somethings wrong 3. vomit taste in full force - I say nothing but spit out what was left of the candy and run to the bathroom to puke. VMcNeill

jean said...

I'll reply to Eric and say that the English on that label is better than 99% of what we usually see around here. Japanese-English is a weird, weird world...

Don't you think that picture of Bambi is a bit weird?? (I mean the tail part...)

When are you coming over for coffee? Bring some of those chocolate caramels when you come!!

Kappa no He said...

Eric: See Jean's comment below. Ha ha. She's right though!

Leah: I don't know. I still think you win. Grub is grub no matter if it is whole or sliced. *shiver*

VMcNeill: Yep, those are the ones!

Jean: Okay, you asked for it. Coffee, mutton covered caramel, and me! I'll call you.

Kelly said...

I love the weird taste tests! Looks like fun - maybe not the lamb flavored one but the others look yummy!

Talia said...

well of course the chocolate flavoured caramel is the best!