08.09.08
Soy Sauce Watermelon Seed
Man I got a lot of lot of snacks when I stopped by Hua Xing. I hadn’t planned to get a month plus of things to review but one thing lead to another and the next thing you know I’m throwing Soy Sauce Watermelon Seeds in my shopping cart because…what? I sat there looking at this package thinking “You crazy Taiwanese, WTH??!? watermelon seeds?” Then I thought, “Well yeah, we’ve been known to roast up a couple pumpkin seeds here in the States and a watermelon isn’t so very different from a pumpkin on the grand scheme of things. Point Taiwan, I’ll give ’em a go.”
Because really? If you think of all the seeds in the world, pumpkin and watermelon are pretty similar in size and shape. Of course one comes from a fruit and the other from a vegetable (squash…whatever) and one is black while the other is white but when you compare them to an apricot pit…pretty similar. I rather like a nicely roasted pumpkin seed so after my initial “WHAT!??!” moment I was intrigued. What would be the difference? I wanted to know!
I wished I had taken a look at the ingredients first though. Do you spot the oddity? Watermelon seed…check. Coconut oil…OoooKay…I guess you might need an oil for roasting. Salt…oh yeah. Soy sauce…it’s mentioned in the name. Liquorice…
Wait. Liquorice? Like…Licorice? Ahhhhh…What? You would think they might mention that somewhere on the front because licorice is a pretty prominent flavor. I’d have wanted to know about the licorice right up there with the soy sauce and the watermellon seeds and not as a small footnote in the ingredients list on the back. We were all a tad surprised by the unexpected licorice and let me warn you now; licorice isn’t a flavor you want sneaking up on you.
Licorice isn’t really a flavor you want paired with salty soy either. Or faintly fruity. In fact, licorice is a flavor you probably only want paired up with licorice (and then absolutely marked on the package that there will be a licoricing in said package) and pretty much nothing else although you might get away sneaking in a vanilla if you are clever. We were not on board with the salty soy licorice at all. We weren’t even in the station.
We might have liked these a whole lot better sans licorice save the unfortunate texture of the seeds. I’m not sure they were roasted as much as they were soaked in soy licorice and then left somewhere to dry. There’s a reason one roasts pumpkin seeds and that is because if you have them raw or dried they are incredibly gnaw-y. Roasted seeds are nicely crispity. Dried seeds are unpleasantly fibrous. I do not like chewing on a licorice flavored soy fruit seed for five minutes in order to break the seed up enough to eat it. As one of my Guinea Pigs remarked, “These are like iron clad pumpkin seeds. They would probably burn really well though.”
Fibery!
Sadly, the prospect of burning the seeds, a good strong soy flavor and this little fella were about the only redeeming qualities of the soy watermelon seeds. I have no idea what that little GMP guy is about, but he’s sure is A-OK with something.
I’m not dismissing roasted watermelon seeds as a whole because I think it can be done right and the idea still intrigues me. I am dismissing these Soy Sauce Watermelon (ninjalicorice) Seeds because they just aren’t good. I’ll give them kudos for effort and a decently good soy flavor but I can’t
Rate them more than 1 wasabi pea out of a possible 5 wasabi peas.
Sophia said,
January 17, 2009 at 2:14 am
Hey, first of all, great blog. Second of all, I’m suspecting that you ate these seeds incorrectly. Did you by chance put the entire thing in your mouth and start chewing??? Forgive the triple “?”, but that’s how worried I am. The correct way to eat these is to break open the shell (you hold the seed with your thumb and forefinger, place it between your molars, and bite down until you hear a crack), which means the shell is open. You then remove the inside seed and chow down. The inside seed itself is not flavored. The flavoring on the outside of the shell is to give you some taste when you place the seed in your mouth for de-shelling. It might seem like a lot of work (it is), but people usually eat these when leisurely watching tv or talking with friends.
If I misunderstood your blog and you did indeed de-shell, then apologies!
Again, love the blog, I too am a Japanese snack freak.
Sophia said,
January 17, 2009 at 2:17 am
oh and to clarify, you eat the inside seed. The outer shell is NOT for consumption.
Boo said,
January 17, 2009 at 1:20 pm
In fact, we did eat the whole seed, casing and all. Hmmm…that would explain the chewyness. I had no idea they were more like sunflower seeds (in which you do husk them) and less like pumpkin seeds (which you don’t husk. At least we don’t husk because you can eat the outer shell of a pumpkin seed just fine after roasting). I’m still not going to try them again because licorice and soy is bad, but it’s good to know that they aren’t as tough as we made them.
Welcome to the JSFR BTW.
Hello said,
April 23, 2009 at 12:17 pm
GMP stands for Good Manufacturing Practices
neptronix said,
December 31, 2009 at 6:15 pm
I love these friggin’ things, but ones that have primarily licorice flavor are the best.
I eat the whole thing. Good work out for the teeth.. ha ha.
Genna said,
August 24, 2011 at 9:08 am
great blog! I actually just bought these and was chewing on them (shell and all) as I read the comments. I tried cracking them open and she’s right! They open easily with no shattered mess you sometimes get with funky sunflower seeds… plus theres more inside for your effort and they are almost sweet. Fortunately I knew before buying them that they were licorice as the bag said “Licorice Watermelon Seed” and the soy was kind of a strong surprise. annny way <3