Revolting Snacks of America: A Field Guide

That said, a standard-issue chick or bunny Peep is customarily less likely to engage in a primal-scream exercise with its tiny faux-rosting mouth. 

Or to have cocoa-brown innards resembling a sponge someone accidentally kicked under the washing machine at the lake house in 1975.

Packaging/Branding. That the Gingerpeeps do not appear on the plastic sleeve in the jaws of a fox is something, we suppose; the package isn't terribly notable. 

Gingerpeeps come in smaller groups than their chick and bunny brethren: three to a packet, versus five or ten.

Flavor Profile. The scent aspires -- rather combatively, in this examiner's opinion -- to a Pepperidge Farm Gingerbread Man cookie; likewise the carapace of powdered sugar. Strangely, however, the taste is not unpleasant, though the marriage of gingerbread flavor and Peep texture -- the very opposite of the dense, unyielding dough of the original bread or cookie in its vague, squooshy mouthfeel -- is disagreeably uncanny.

Habitat. Off-brand animated-holiday-special conventions; a pike outside the Peep Supermax Correctional Facility in Catasauqua, PA. 

Field Notes. Alleged to expire in July of this year, the Gingerpeeps showed no signs of deterioration and may suit for doomsday supply.

Venturing a glimpse at a PCP's innards is, while perhaps not more disturbing, more unexpectedly so, as the optic-white insides of the standard Easter-focused peep are not present. The PCP's guts are a cheese-curd cream color that, alongside the searing blue and contrasting speckles of the skin, do suggest a cake...but one left to fend for itself in an April downpour.

Nor can we adequately describe the surreal experience of looking a Cake Peep in its tiny, brown, depressed, pointy eye.

Packaging/Branding. The angle at which the exemplar Peep is positioned on the package is rather odd. It seems to loom up in the foreground, like the Peep-berg on which the teetering marshmallow-cake vessel behind it is going to shipwreck. But the back of the package offers terrifying cannibalistic thrills, as a Peep in a Merlin party hat supervises a Peeps Party Cake Fondue recipe that, once the melting of chocolate and the arraying of toppings is completed, includes the instruction "Skewer the chicks." Good heavens. It's like a cut scene from a Saturday-morning Satyricon cartoon.

Flavor Profile. The PCP has more flavor than the garden-variety Peep; the birthday-cake taste is somewhat at odds with the gassy mouthfeel of the marshmallow, but far less vile than expected.

Habitat. 50 Shades Of Anthropomorphized Candy parties; gluten-free children's birthdays.

Field Notes. MarshmallowPeeps.com offers t-shirts in this very color.

One wonders how this chalk-and-Cheez-Whiz sweetmeat abortion occurred. Did an ambitious associate vice president at the Frankford Candy Company -- the same snack-food Voldemorts who brought us Gummy Krabby Patties -- stare at the bowl of Jolly Ranchers in the reception area and think to herself, "Who's a jollier rancher than Santa?", but fail to recall that St. Nick's cash crop is not marshmallows? This is not a "you got your chocolate in my peanut butter" situation, nor a harmonious marriage of two counterintuitive-in-theory flavors a la the creamsicle. This…is a "you got your toenail clippings in my Thunderbird" situation, and yet, somehow, the Sour Puff Marshmallow's nuclear-winterized Santumors reached the production stage.

How recently they reached it is hard to say. The box had no expiration date, but bisecting a Sour Puff for testing was like cutting into a trilobyte.

Packaging/Branding. Straightforward, excepting the cartoon Santa. He's no doubt intended to evince "puckering up at delightful sourness" but instead suggests that horrible rum-breathed creeper at the mall whose hand strayed into your Oshkoshes well beyond what Christmas-list fact-finding would require.

Flavor Profile. The "redberry" does not exist in nature, of course, and the corresponding Sour Puff has a dreamlike "all berries and yet/ergo no berries" ambiguity; the closest real-world analog is the flavored amoxicillin toddlers get for ear infections, and it isn't sour. The green-apple puff is slightly more acidic, but about as convincing as a LipSmacker. In each case the marshmallow center tastes like the very dirt it is likely older than.

Habitat. The stockings of deeply naughty children; the Secret-Santa exchange at that sorority Ted Bundy rampaged through.

Field Notes. In a spirited round of Snack Death Is Not An Option at the lab's winter-holiday fete, the Sour Puffs ranked between "the candied pencil-gripper chunks in Aunt Maudeen's fruitcake" and "vegan flourless carrot cake with extra raisins."

Flavor Profile. Though the word "popcorn" suggests that the finished item will be swalty, you actually use air-popped plain popcorn, so there's no "salty" -- just sweet. So so so sweet. What you're going to be tasting is melted white chocolate chips mixed with golden cake mix glopped with M&Ms and candy sprinkles; the flavorlessness of the popcorn is actually kind of a relief.

That said: now that I've made it once, my mind raced with possible variations. Peanut butter chips with chocolate cake! Butterscotch chips and white cake! Reese's Pieces instead of M&Ms! Your own Dr. Bunting suggested substituting Nerds for sprinkles. The possibilities are almost endless.

Habitat. Though it was originally conceived for kids' parties, bring that shit to a grownup's birthday party LIKE I DID and blow everyone's damn minds while they try to figure out what they did to get so lucky.

Field Notes. Though this is not in the recipe, I would advise adding a little milk to the stage where you're combining the melted chips and dry cake mix; you want the consistency of the goop to be similar to a chocolate syrup, and without it the goop ends up more paste-like. No bueno.

Revulsion Scale: 1 (IT'S SO GOOD)

The bright-blue coloration of both label and product suggest keee-razy blu razzleberrayyyyyy!; or peppermint; or Smurfs. (…"Smurves"?) But the flavoring is vanilla, so the olde-tyme hoarhound striping of the Roll signifies nothing, save perhaps the possible return of FD&C Blue #1 to active duty after an internal investigation into The Sailor Mercury Incident.

Packaging/Branding. Waffy Wafer Rolls come in a resealable plastic tube with a somewhat confusing label. Are the Rolls partying in a Slurpee? Drowning in a glacier? Whipping up some onion dip? Are those the…Himalayas lurking in the background? What's going on here?

Flavor Profile. A single Roll's phony vanilla flavoring is best described as belligerent; when several are eaten in succession, the more nuanced wafer takes over, but the overall effect is of sugars on the verge of ferment. A top note of leaf mold is present.

Habitat. Winter formals; Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends cosplay costumes; Everest Camp IV.

Field Notes. The sample's shelf neighbor was a container of Sanka from several font cycles ago.

The center is "double stuffed" with chocolate crème that from all angles resembles the offal of a medium-sized dog breed. Once the comparison has been made, everything else about the experience takes on a foul undertone. Eating an elf, for example, or what "the hollow tree" might be a euphemism for.

…Fudge.

Packaging/Branding. An unattractive photo of the cookie is set off by the customary overly enthusiastic Keebler-branded gnome, who is either posing as or representing the imaginary E.L. Fudge. We fail to see why a non-cutesy product name like "Keebler Double Cocoa Cremes" would not have sufficed -- or, if this is the moniker the marketing team insisted on, why nobody in the room realized that the phrase "double-stuffed" should have a hyphen. Each cookie is the size of a thumb; a serving contains only two, and those two contain nine grams of fat.

Flavor Profile. Inoffensive, although the cookie itself has a zwiebacky wheatiness that is not indicated in a sweet. The balance of cookie and filling is surprisingly deft, the crème unexpectedly non-grainy (provided you don't examine the Double Stuffed too closely before attempting to eat it).

Habitat. Kate's Secret viewing parties; the dog park.

Field Notes. Dr. Brady reported a vague embarrassment at having to obtain a sample with "Fudge" in the name, and was reminded with asperity by his section chief that nobody forced him to propose "those blobbish Poo-reos" for review.

Packaging/Branding. It is highly tempting to note that the crackers "put the 'ass' back in 'Croquets Assaisonnee de Seiche,'" but ass isn't the package's problem. Penis, however, constitutes a significant issue, as the cuttlefish depicted at the top looks like a phallus with streamers. This is in fact what squid and their relations resemble, but given that the package isn't trying to claim genuine cuttlefish as an ingredient, why not leave that association out? …Excuse me: "cuttlefish powder" does appear in the ingredients list. Putting the words "contains real cuttlefish" in a wavy blue box on the front is more appetizing. As…it would have to be.

Perhaps the packagers didn't feel confident in their English, which ranges elsewhere on the bag from baffled ("Allergy Advise: May Contains Trace Of Crustacean, Fish.") to baffling ("The Illustrations on the pack are for decorative purposes only." As opposed to…what? Eating the pack? Turning it in as homework?). The bag also shows the snack itself, at a good half again the actual size.

Flavor Profile. Real seafood flavoring is more subtle (and inoffensive) than ersatz versions. Miaow Miaow's cracker is the best possible realization of a fishy Corn Pop. The average tentacle is quite crunchy.

Habitat. Coast Guard rookie hazing; the Honolulu airport.

Field Notes. Miaow Miaow's "The House of Snacks" tagline may have drawn Dr. Barkenbush to the sample. That, or she's gone all Colonel Kurtz on us.

Revulsion Scale: 9

Packaging/Branding. The list of ingredients is, it will surprise no one to learn, highly disturbing, not least because the reticent "Red #40" fails to tell a story that quite obviously originates in the same armed-forces laboratory as LSD. And what, pray tell, is "glycerol ester of wood rosin"? (It is, we learned, a stabilizer. The accompanying gallery of art-teacher's-jewelry-esque amber chunks is less than comforting.)

Accompanying this chemical stew is a merry duo of Picassoid kokopellis, one driving a tiny convertible, the other working at a typewriter. We want desperately to believe that these tiny cousins to Fido Dido are demigods in a Dr.-Bronnerian label mythology of some sort, and that the little typewriter guy is notcomposing an angry letter to the C&C Corp that begins, "Dear Sirs: My mother consumed liter upon liter of your watermelon soda while I gestated, AND NOW I HAVE AN EYE THAT TAKES UP FORTY PERCENT OF MY HEAD AND I WILL HAVE SOME SATISFACTION. AND SOME VISINE. PLEASE RESPOND."

Flavor Profile. Like losing an MMA match to an irradiated Jolly Rancher.

Habitat. Delis frequented by high-school students; the Mount Weather commissary; New Jersey. (The company is based there. Obviously.)

Field Notes. Watermelon is not considered a novelty flavor. These are the novelty flavors. Any survivors of a float made with "Red Pop," please report to the Mutter Museum at once.

The bag also features a checkered pattern at the top which can be used as an emergency Othello board.

Flavor Profile. The berry flavor mélange is listed in the ingredients as "apple, grape, blueberry, raspberry, blackberry and elderberry." You'll have to take their word for it because our lab results came back as "tutti-frutti." You don't buy Ralph's Yogurt & Berries Mini Rice Cakes for the rice so we can't knock it for its overpowering fruitiness but the sweetness is just too much. You're fooling yourself if you think you're eating something healthy with these. Just be honest with yourself and have some Mike and Ikes.

Habitat. The mouth of a 37-year old walking home from yoga class.

Field Notes. The pantone color for Ralph's Yogurt & Berries Mini Rice Cakes is 245M. The shelf life, according to the "best before" date, is approximately one year but we consider that conservative considering each rice cake is positively armored in candy shellac.

Flavor Profile. Low. The Ring is revolting in its inception, but almost invisible to the palate. The bouquet is a complicated affair -- a cross between a tire store that doubles as, and has basically become, a daytime social club for old men in coveralls; and stale cayenne. But the taste is…not. It is not complicated; it is…not really anything. A faint zing of off-brand salsa is soon clotheslined by salt and corn, and then all three vanish entirely.

Habitat. The lost-luggage desk at Qantas.

Field Notes. The only winner here is Dr. Blankenship's packing skills, which allowed the Burger Rings to land on American soil with nary a broken O.

Habitat. The trash can at the end of the Montessori school's "harvest fete" buffet table, whisked thereto by a clucking fruit-is-nature's-candy zealot.

Field Notes. Seasonal, fortunately, although we suppose the season of the witch doesn't obey our calendar.

Revulsion Scale: 5

More revolting: Pop Tart

Packaging/Branding. OD: Packaging did not apply, but branding qualified as relentless approximately 9 minutes after the promotion began. A row of the speckled rings behind the counter at Dunkin Donuts made an attractive battalion. PT: Standard Pop-erating procedure for the product. The probably accurate, and therefore deeply depressing, assumption by Kellogg's about their customers' native intelligence (step one of the "Toasting Instructions": "Remove pastry from pouch") persists. 

More revolting: Pop Tart

Flavor Profile. OD: Dr. Bunting had the misfortune of sampling the filled-center option, although she doubts the standard-donut version would have fared any better, given that these pastries likely arrived on shelves three months ago. She also admits in retrospect that pairing it with sauvignon blanc constitutes a possibly fatal testing error. In her defense, however, a white-wine drench seemed like the only treatment for rubbery staleness, cookie lumps the color and consistency of the carbon bits in Fresh Step cat litter, and Splenda-papier-mâché crème filling. PT: Puts forth a startlingly accurate facsimile of the Oreo® itself, right down to the zero-tolerance policy for saliva. The proportions are somewhat off -- the cookie/filling ratio is closer to that of a Double-Stuf -- but it tastes better than it looks. Then again, it would have to.

More revolting: Oreo® Donut

Habitat. OD: Homeroom birthday parties; community board meetings. PT: Sorority kitchens; the Duggars' pantry.

Field Notes. Dunkin counterperson: "We still have those? …Why?"