unsnackable hindsight and snack fanfic
unsnackable vol. 49
I had grand plans for all the ways I wanted to mark this newsletter's 1st birthday on 9/13. What I ended up doing was going to bed early.
If my math is correct, I've spent somewhere around two weeks of my life on this newsletter since I sent out the first volume last September. It may be the only time I have even a vague accounting of during fuzziest part of quar. It may also be the only time I tried to quantify to determine if my soft failure to steward a hobby away from the magnetic pull of productivity was disqualifying.
Writing has always felt like a path predestined by childhood journals and a temperamental passion that I lacked. I saw it as merely a mechanism fit for emails and decks and the ephemeral ineptitudes of social posts. I used to think that it scared me, but now I realize it was just an activity that I had no reason to prioritize.
I've loved working on this newsletter and in every sense, it has been one of the most creatively disorienting things I have ever done. I was starting from scratch searching for a voice that others assured that they could already hear. But as I've said, I am Nigerian, and only find validity in my self-regard so my only measure of success is against my original adversary of discomfort.
Still, there was the New York Times , and the New Yorker and KCRW and Embedded, and SBS Australia and The Face and more genuinely sweet emails and tweets than I am capable of processing. I'm glad that something I did for myself can be enjoyed by other people. All it took was devoting a majority of my brain to a grand taxonomy of the snacks in these countries.
Let's take a look back at a few standouts from the first year of unsnackables
the unsnackables
sweet
First Appeared in: Unsnackable Vol. 1 This was the first snack that convinced me that this newsletter could be viable because it was both alluring and striking at once. The anglicized nonsense of the name, the recognizable but unreachable combination of flavors and textures. I couldn't stop thinking about it for weeks.
savory
First Appeared in: Unsnackable Vol. 12 The little snack gremlin in my brain mostly responds to sugar, so finding savory snacks to feature is always a bit harder than finding sweets. Chips are always the logical avenue to explore. Unfortunately, the multi-national reach of processing conglomerates is especially evident in the category. But I'm a simple bougie creature. When I am doing positive visualization for the future, I don't dream about owning property. I just dream about eating these caviar chips with caviar and lots of champagne.
thirsty
First Appeared In: Unsnackable Vol. 17 (this is a post that disappeared during my transition from substack, but it was great). I'm addicted to sincerity and this bubblegum flavored iced tea from a Luxembourgish... bro... themed...brand is the closest that I flew to adding a joke product in this newsletter. My punishment was developing a deep affinity for this weird little brand. I watched skits with anthropomorphic bearded corn puffs. I got excited when an ice cream shop used the aforementioned bubblegum tea to make ice cream. I read the developer notes for their branded app that probably does not steal all of your data. Against all odds, I became one of the 4Bros
boozy
First Appeared In: Unsnackable Vol. 29 People often ask if researching snacks has put locations on my travel bucket list, but it has mostly given me a toolkit to discover snacks, regardless of where I go. But this liqueur and the gorgeous vineyard that produces it made me dig deep enough to find an Airbnb and write Cypriot fan fiction about sipping it in a private wade pool.
I’m still figuring this out, but hopefully, you enjoyed v.49 of unsnackable.
If you didn’t please don’t tell me, tell your friends to subscribe because they hopefully have better taste than you.
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I’ll try any snack at least once, so don’t be shy if there is something you want to send me to try.
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