(to NB, with love- your canine granddaughter, demonstrating an inherited interest in junk)

Es el birthday de mi padre, so I thought it would be appropriate to review one of the savory snacks he gave me during my last visit to the homestead.  I’d never heard of Takis brand before, but I suspect that’s because of my lack of familiarity with Latin American snacks. These snacks are made by Barcel, a unit of the Mexican multinational company Grupo Bimbo, which I like to pronounce like a Spanish Olympics announcer (or a soccer announcer).  I would like to thank mi padre por todas las snacks deliciosas.  Espero que tenga un feliz cumpleaños!

Now let’s talk turkey about taste- except these do not taste anything like turkey.   These little tortilla tubes are saturated in one of my favorite flavors- chili and lime.

(This little lady is certainly excited about snacks…am I talking about myself or the dog? hmmm)

Takis snacks are masa flour-based, which gives them an authentic Latin American flavor. They’re just spicy enough to burn the back of your throat, but not so spicy that you hurt your tongue or start screaming for milk.  MSG is in the ingredient list, so even though your mouth has been slightly assaulted by chili and citrus, you keep eating them because you are COMPELLED to do so by your taste buds.  I like these snacks, but I think I might prefer some lighter (i.e. less dense) chili/lime snacks, like the HEB hijole cheese balls.

In contrast to these authentic-ish Latin American tortilla rolls, I also ate some Belgian Doritos-brand nacho cheese dip this evening.  What do you call cheese that isn’t yours? NACHO CHEESE!  This nacho cheese was almost not mine, because I almost left it under my seat on the Eurostar train.

After my colleague gently teased me about rolling up to the train with an excess of bags, which I shoved into my suitcase like a Russian nesting doll, I thought “wait a second- I actually had one more bag, and it contains 23 Euros worth of junk purchased at the train station.”  At that point I abruptly left my colleagues (and boss, because I’m a classy professional) and ran back to the train to retrieve my snacks.  I’m lucky that jumping back into the train didn’t cause an incident.  In the U.S., it may have been a “see something, say something” situation.  I can imagine it now. “Yeah officer, I saw this woman in business attire with several bags force herself back on the train at the station….yeah officer, she picked up a bag, I’m pretty sure I saw some Doritos in there. But something else definitely looked like glass- like a yellow substance….no, no color I’ve ever seen in nature. I don’t really know what it was, to be honest…but there seemed to be a lot of it.”