One of my most inaccessible goals is to own a toaster. It has always felt out of reach, a luxury of single-use in a life of multi-tasking. I am happy to blame various societal ills for taking this away from me but the truth is that introspection is the only answer. I have formed emotional attachments to multiple KitchenAid mixers, no wonder I don't have enough room for a toaster.
From a practical standpoint, a toaster isn't even the best way to make toast. An oven set on broil gives you a crisp top with a pillowy underside. A hot pan with oil or butter allows you to caramelize each slice to serve as a foundation for a mountain of toppings. When I got a few slices of shokupan imported from Japan, I turned to my air fryer.
toasted shokupan, whipped ricotta, strawberries, fresh mint, earl grey syrup
toasted shokupan, duck fat confit tomato sauce, mozzarella, spicy salami, jalapeños, red pepper flakes
Is toast the perfect food? Maybe. If it is not, all the best contenders to challenge its supremacy are unsnackables
the unsnackables
sweet
SKITTLES SQUISHY CLOUDZ CRAZY SOURZ (U.K.)
I've become slightly desensitized to being shocked by snacks or snack-related ephemera because I spend so much of my time in the depths. But I gasped so loud that I earned concern from those around me when I found out that Skittles are British. For years I have stewed indignantly at the lagging innovation of American Skittles compared to their theoretically similar counterparts across the pond. But we aren't a lagging originator, we're an unimpressive younger sibling. I even thought the launch of these oversized foam gummies was following in the footsteps of the Skittles Gummies in the states (One of the best American fruit candy launches in years btw), but they are different. And I need to try them.
savory
KFC KULIT AYAM (Malaysia)
One of my favorite slightly devastating modern phenomena is the phantom Reddit AITA post. When you are forced to use boolean search operators to condense a fake story that you read in a screenshot 2-3 years ago but will never find again. The phenomenon is shared but the memory of the posts is usually fragmented so many iterative misremembrances. Anyway, I spent a long time trying to find an old AITA about fried chicken skin to intro this limited edition item from KFC. It can only be ordered for 3 hours each day and I wish I had full access to my memory for those same hours each day because I feel like the AITA was very enjoyable.
thirsty
꼬북칩 초코 츄러스 블라스트 (Korea)
Somewhere in the eggy paté a choux that forms the basis for churro must be a bit of actual magic because it is hard to make bad churros and somehow harder to be disappointed by a churro *flavored* snack. The textural magnificence of Orion's chocolate churro chips inspired a capsule of treats from Baskin Robbins Korea. The standout of the line is this chocolate churro-flavored shake topped with a pile of chips. Ripe for dipping and sturdy enough to crunch into the shake without dissolving, this is my type of choose-your-own-adventure snack.
boozy
CAMPARI SODA (Italy)
It's poetic, the way you can trace the path of the aughts in the footsteps of red-bitter apéritifs. From "It's Negroni Season" to the single most successful cocktail marketing campaign of my lifetime (I own Campari branded novelty drinking helmet?) to the inevitable backlash (what an annoying day on Twitter). Given the omnipresence of those vivid red bottles, it feels like a glaring market oversight that they have not tried to launch these RTD Campari soda cocktails in America. Personally, it feels like an exceedingly monumental oversight on my part that I knew they existed but thought it was just a red bitter soda like Stappi.
icymi
I was interviewed in the wonderful embedded newsletter about internet and my existence therein, read it! or don't! but I was charming and eloquent as per usual so you're missing out if you don't....
I’m still figuring this out, but hopefully, you enjoyed v.46 of unsnackable.
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