Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Delicious new treat sensation


Today a friend of Oldest brought over a box of Japanese cookies. They looked innocuous enough with pictures of some round red fruit in front although it was all in Japanese. Somewhere on the side I can make out the words Kisyu Ume and inside the foil wrappers, the word Pretzel. After her friend left, Oldest brings over the cookie box and asks if she can have one.

Sure go ahead I say. Eagerly she opens the box and shoves a stick in her mouth. All of a sudden a curious and utterly horrible expression overcomes her face and she immediately spits out the cookie.

"It tastes disgusting," she says. She hands me half of the long, thin pink stick she had just bitten. Curious I take the inoffensive looking thing. It has the strangest perfume-like fragrance but with the added funk of rotten fruit notes. Just the smell alone is enough to put you off of it, but then I took a small bite. Oh Lord she was not lying! Please get this horrible taste out of my mouth!!!!! I cannot describe the salty, vinegary, sour, rotten and generally disgusting taste that assaulted me. I spat it out and tried desperately to rinse the taste out to no avail. Hours later I could still smell the faintest whiff of the perfume-like-rot clinging to my lips. I realize only after looking it up that Ume is salted, pickled plum and while it is a delicacy in Japan, it is also an acquired taste.

"What's going on?" Angus asks with a curious look. She has been busy playing in the other room and only comes over at our riotous ways. Oldest quietly hands her another stick from her very full pack.

Angus grabs it and pops it in her mouth. The immediate look of horror that overcomes her sends me and Oldest into laughing fits.

"Why did you let me eat that?" Angus asks with a look of utter betrayal on her face.

"Because it was too funny," I reply wiping my eyes.

Youngest has been watching the proceedings the whole time with absolute fascination. Angus tries to foist the rest on Youngest but Youngest runs away. She is no fool.

At that moment, Da Man returns home. Oldest and I look at each other and we begin to grin and giggle. Angus realizing our evil intent, begins to run towards her father, intent on warning him.

"NO Dad! Don't eat it..." I catch Angus and wrapping a hand around her mouth plead with her not to say anything and bribe her with more Pokemon cards. She agrees but decides she can't watch the carnage and runs away.

"Hi Dad! Welcome home!" Oldest says, all smiles.

"Hey honey, I'm glad you are home, S gave Oldest a box of cookies but we can't make out what they might be. Here try one and tell us what you think."

Da Man reaches eagerly for a cookie and take a large bite. The immediate reaction is all that we could have hoped for as aghast he runs to the kitchen to spit out the cookie. I thought I was going to have a coronary laughing as hard as I did. The look of horrified revulsion was beyond priceless. I only wish I could make him eat it over and over again for my general amusement.

Oldest and I are debating what to do with the rest of the nasty treat when I say, "Hey, Auntie is coming over for dinner tomorrow!"

Oldest and I grin evilly. I place the box carefully back into the pantry. I cannot wait to see my sister's face when she tries our new treat.

28 comments:

SzélsőFa said...

You are one evil family, Ello.
Happy Birthday to your oldest daughter!

pacatrue said...

Sounds a good bit like lee hing mui, a really popular local snack here that makes the face of the unsuspecting twist into preciously never seen shapes. It's a dried plum covered in the lee hing powder which is, god what is it, sort of sour and bitter and salty all at once. People like to take the lee hing powder and dust various items with it like pineapple and all sorts of fruits and candies.

It's very much an acquired taste. I have yet to acquire it.

pacatrue said...

Oh, here's a link to a little bit about li hing mui and li hing powder. Apparently, they are selling li hing tequila now.

Chris Eldin said...

Ello, I have a few favors.
Take down this post.
Send me those sticks.
When I use them as a prize for my contest in a few weeks, don't say anything.
:-)

SzélsőFa said...

Rather, you should run a contest and hand the treat out as the prize for the worst entry.

J. L. Krueger said...

Ell,

LMAO! Gads you and my wife are a least "sisters of the spirit"!

I've learned to be suspicious whenever she wants me to "try something".

;)

Tyhitia Green said...

That is too funny. Wish I could do that here in the south, but when people actually eat racoons, opposums, squirrels, turtles, etc.---they'll eat anything...lol. Ewwww...not me, though. I stick with beef, chicken, and fish...lol.

Precie said...

LMAO!

Anonymous said...

Oh man, that was cold. But hilarious I'm sure.

Bernita said...

E-V-I-L!

Travis Erwin said...

Y'all are evil .. but try and get a video of your sister's reaction.

We all want to laught too.

Blogless Troll said...

Hilarious!

Larramie said...

Ello, really...talk about random acts of unkindness. ;)

Precie said...

Hmm...I'm beginning to suspect my moral compass has gone awry...I didn't think this was all that evil. LOL!!! I mean, it's not poison. Granted, I might feel differently if I were on the receiving end, but...ya know, no one was really harmed. ;)

(This from a person who is very, VERY wary of new foods.)

Anonymous said...

I am less shocked by Ello's "trick" than by Precie's endorsement of it!!

Precie looks so...sweet....

Ello - Ellen Oh said...

Using it as a prize is a fabulous idea! I should think of a good writing contest and have it as the Grand Prize - guaranteed to bring about endless amount of entertainment!!

Paca - I think it is the same thing! I shudder to think that people actually enjoy this stuff!

Damn I wish I thought to take a video of my husband's face. Can't do it for my sister - she'd smell a rat right away!

Anonymous said...

Too funny! Hard to believe anyone could acquire a taste for something so repulsive.

Patti said...

bwhahahaha....i needs me some evil rotten cookies for my next family get together...

Unknown said...

You could of course try to acquire the taste for salted, pickled plums...
;-)

Mary Witzl said...

Ello, I love these! They are ume-boshi (salted plum) flavored sticks, and not meant to be sweet -- that is why you didn't like them! If you'd started out thinking of them as savory, you might have enjoyed them.

I am absolutely CRAZY about garlic and can eat it raw. Once, I dropped a clove of garlic into a bowl of sweetened popcorn as I was cooking, and forgot about it. Later, when I was snacking on the popcorn, I popped it into my mouth and bit down on it and it utterly disgusted me: it wasn't what I was expecting!

Just send me that package. I'll make short work of it!

Sandra Cormier said...

Those look like my kids' favourite Japanese treats, Pocky. They come in strawberry, chocolate, and sometimes tomato flavours.

We had a Japanese Import store on our Main Street and the kids practically lived there.

I never heard of the pickled plum, though...

Lana Gramlich said...

You need to bring a box of this into the office (or what have you,) for the next potluck or holiday share-off. Mwa ha ha...

Akasha Savage. said...

That is so very wicked...but so so funny. You evil person you!!
:D

The Anti-Wife said...

No wonder I like you. We have the same twisted sense of humor.

Kappa no He said...

I'm with Mary, I love them too. And the Kishu Ume are the best kind. Yum, yum. Let me know when you run out. I'll send ya some more.

Hee hee.

Mary Witzl said...

I'm guessing that someone ordered a whole ton of Kishu (or Kisyu, but I'm a Kishu-type person) Ume from Japan. The kids won't appreciate them because they've developed American tastes, so the parents have been eating them non-stop and they're getting sick and tired of them. So now they're resorting to fobbing them off on others, who think they're going to be sweet -- i.e., cookies -- and are thus grossed out by them.

My kids hate umeboshi too, though. Umeboshi and kimchi are the only Asian foodstuffs we can keep around that don't get gobbled up before we've had a chance to taste them.

March2theSea said...

those sound good!

Carleen Brice said...

Mean! But funny. I love what a positive influence you are for Angus. :)