12.27.09
Zap Spicy Snack
To round out the year I found another “product of Thailand” Zap International, Inc. snack (although Zap seems to have an American facility in Chula Vista, California). If you cast back your memory to May ’08 you may remember the very first JSFR 0 pea rating Zap Pusit. Imagine my glee and trepidation when I found that Zap made another product: Spicy Snack.
Spicy Snack is pretty much dried anchovies. The ingredients are anchovy, sugar, palm oil, salt, chili powder and msg and true to that, Spicy Snacks taste like little fish with some sweet, a little salt and a touch of spicy. Spicy Snacks also smell fishy but not excessively fish foody which is better than most fish snacks that have shown up at the JSFR. These little anchovy snacks are also keenly crispy which is a far cry better than their cousins Zap Pusit.
In comparison to Zap Pusit, these are really tasty. However in comparison to food these do not rank as high. My Guinea Pigs in unison despised these snacks and en mass reached for something to cleanse their palates after one little crunch. Weirdly, I did not find these crispy somewhat old palm oily fishy snacks so horribly horrific. They do leave a lingering fishy aftertaste which is meh but then again…anchovies here.
Personally, I’d be OK with going no higher than a 1.5 pea rating but my Guinea Pigs would not hear of it. We actually got into a shouting match about the ratings but I’m standing firm. I’m not willing to go to a 0 since there are a couple redeeming features and as one Pig quipped, “In the service of the JSFR, I have had worse.” Certainly Spicy Snack was worlds better than Pusit so they deserve at least some positive pea rating. For the impressive crispy and the fact that these do not taste like five day old rotted fish, Zap Spicy Snack can net themselves a tenuous
Rating of 1 wasabi pea out of a possible 5 wasabi peas…which is probably 0.75 more peas than the Pigs are happy with.
