10.02.10
Koeda Chcolate (caramel pumpkin)
Just in time for October, here’s a fall harvesty treat for you. I’ve done 4 other Koeda chocolates (Evening Time, Morning Time, milk, and orange) and they have been pretty universally a stick of chocolate or white chocolate (with or without flavor) with rice crispy bits. Some had other little bits, like the Morning Time’s berry bits, some were really good, some were tasty, none were pumpkin. So, when I was last out snack fooding with Guinea Pig Badmovie, I did not so much mind him chucking a package of these in my basket. After all, Koeda has been on the tastier side and caramel and pumpkin ought to be really tasty yes?
I learned my lesson that Pumpkin Pocky tasted exactly like what it promised: cooked pumpkin squash and not, say, tasty seasoned pumpkin pie, so I approached Pumpkin Pretz with a more pumpkin meaty point of view only to discover that the Japanese have a very different breed of pumpkin than we do. This time I thought ixnay on the umkin iepay and think squashy in place of pumpkin, girded my loins and tucked into a Koeda caramel Pumpkin stick.
Why do the Japanese love to surprise me so with pumpkin?
These Koeda smell reminiscent of the generic squash tasting pumpkin of the Pretz but they also have a sort of unpleasant squashy smell to them as well. Sadly, they make me think of my Druid Guinea Pig’s garden experiment one year where she grew squash and pumpkins. Her garden is small and the two plants cross pollinated to produce squmpkins, which had none of the redeeming characteristics of either parent plant. The squash were so sadly disappointing that in the end they all ended up on the compost heap. The pumpkin in Koeda Caramel Pumpkin could indeed be made from some of the offspring of the regrettable squmpkin incident.
When you get to the tasting of the Caramel Pumpkin Koeda, it doesn’t get much better in terms of pumpkin. It’s a fine pumpkin taste if your pumpkin isn’t any of the roundish, orange, Jack o’ lantern/sugar pie making family of pumpkins and instead is a more squashy tasting pumpkin. Possibly even a squmpkin. Which is OK if that’s what a Japanese pumpkin tastes like; these Koeda certainly have gotten squash flavor right. It’s just not pumpkin as an American palate is keyed to tasting.
On the other hand, the sticks have little brown inclusions in them which are chewy and deliciously caramel. The caramel taste wavers between brown sugar and caramel but I think that’s because I’m used to eating squash with brown sugar. Really, caramel and brown sugar are fairly close in taste considering all the tastes out there. Along with the squash and the caramel bits, there is the creamy flavor of the white chocolate to round out the deal. All together, Koeda Chocolate (caramel pumpkin) make a pretty decent package but it’s not going to be pumpkin for a good deal of the American tasters. If the pumpkin of your taste is more of the Japanese persuasion, then add a full pea to the
Rating of 3 Wasabi Peas out of a possible 5.
Amy said,
October 6, 2010 at 7:55 pm
Oh noes! Not the squmpkins!
(On my DS virtual farming game, which is Japanese, you can grow pumpkins in the fall and they are not orange. They are large, round, and dark green. I think there is a fundamental cultural pumpkin disconnect.)
boo said,
October 7, 2010 at 11:45 am
That’s why I gave the double rating: a 3 for the American/westerner and a 4 for the Japanese/people for whom a pumpkin isn’t round, orange and meatier than squash tasting. They really do a good “pumpkin” but it’s not what *I* would call pumpkin.
And yes. Squmpkins. Sigh.