06.09.07
Healthy Vigour Mustarded Black Soybean
There is so much going on here I do not know where to start. I suppose I might start at the beginning when my favorite Guinea Pig came sidling up to me as I was JSF shopping and snuck these into the basket with an impish grin. He was all about these because A: Is that an anthropomorphic jalapeño pepper playing a Kodo drum? Why? True, Healthy Vigour Mustarded Black Soybean does have chili powder in it so maybe that fella is a really fat unripe chili pepper? Even though chili powder comes after black soy bean, mustard, soybean sauce, mixed spices, and licorice root (!) (but before mixed herbs…which is the last thing on the ingredients list)? OoooKay.
Maybe Healthy Vigour Mustarded Black Soybean amuses us so much because the serving size is 1 piece(s) (30g) at 143 calories per serving. 143!!?! 30g!!??!! Do you SEE the size of these fellas? Shoot, 16 baby carrots weigh about six grams so according to the package, one bean weighs as much as 80 baby carrots! That’s…well completely wrong as the Serving Per Container is listed at 8 and there is no way they mean that there are only 8 little beans in the whole bag.
Maybe it’s this that amuses us so.
Or possibly even the fact that they are “mustarded”. I’ve never really thought of mustard in the verb form before but hey. You never know until you try new things right? Personally, I think the fact that the beans look like little rabbit droppings is what amuses me the most. Yes, I am a 5 year old at heart.
Anyway, once we were through giggling about the packaging, we opened them up and tried a few. I don’t know if we ate 143 calories of beans, but most of the Pigs discovered that they rather liked Healthy Vigour Mustarded Black Soybean in a crunchy snacky sort of way.
They have a very spiced soybean smell to them and are pleasantly crunchy and zesty with the chili and mixed spices. As far as the licorice flavoring is concerned I wouldn’t have guessed there was any in there at all if I hadn’t read it on the ingredients list. I’m also not getting mustard really, unless it’s a spicy mustard that is hanging out with the chili zest. As for black soybean…oh yeah. There is no mistaking the fact that these are indeed black soybeans. Lastly, the crunch. These fellas would make a perfect bar snack sitting there next to the peanuts and pretzels and hey!
Check that out! Of course we had to try them with beer (as recommended on the packaging!) and darned if they don’t taste better – at least to me – with a nice tall frosty one. Mach indeed.
Personally, I’d probably rate these at a nice solid 3, maybe a 3.5 because the packaging is the most amusing we’ve had for quite some time but I was in the minority. Pretty much most of my Guinea Pigs loved these things so I’m going to have to go with the will of the masses and give Healthy Vigour Mustarded Black Soybean a packaging plus pure enjoyment
rating of 4.5 wasabi peas out of 5.
TheMan said,
June 10, 2007 at 10:02 am
MACH!
Sophia said,
February 5, 2009 at 1:18 am
When non-Japanese Asians say “mustard”, they usually mean wasabi. Did you get a wasabi-ish vibe?
Boo said,
February 18, 2009 at 10:48 am
Ooooooo…I think I deleted that tasting file from my brain so I’m not exactly sure on the wasabiness or not wasabiness of the beans. I seem to remember they were…wait, hold on. Oh dear god, I found them hiding in my book shelves. How fortuitous maybe.
OK, not dead and the beans are more wasabi than they are mustard sort of. They actually did a nice job with the wasabi spice; not to vivid but with a bit of bite. Huh.