Dear Readers, I know I continue to promise more blogging and then I don’t deliver. I think I have to accept that my resources are too limited for that. And by resources I mean time and space left between my body and my pants. My junk food is piling up in the pantry, because I’m still committed to my mission of profiling the world’s snacks, but I’m a little slow on the actual profiling part.

For tonight’s instalment, I pulled some Rancheros from the back of the cabinet. These are from Ireland, which is totally full of cowboys. Actually, this is the most cowboy-adjacent thing I saw in Ireland:

Rancheros are bacon flavored, and resemble pork rinds without actually consisting of pork. They do include bacon flavour, which is basically yeast. I would include a picture of the ingredients list but my dog ate the package.

Upon first bite, the texture is pleasant and the taste is a combination of savoury and malty sweetness. Then the MSG kicks in, and what started as “meh” turns into “meh…but I will eat all of these right now.” MSG is the ultimate food enabler, like if Jiminy Cricket could help you open a Pringles container.

This taste aphrodisiac was not lost on le dog, who legit stole the first Ranchero from my hands while I was trying to take a picture of it. After that it was non-stop licking of chomps and belligerent darting back and forth as I moved the package away from her. Instead of disciplining her, I laughed and dramatically dropped the bag on the ground (she had to think she had really earned it- that’s part of good parenting). Then I helped her get her snout inside the empty bag because it was hard to watch her try to eat crumbs from the outside of the bag. Wait a second…what if I’m the enabler- what if I’m Junkity Cricket? She learned it from watching meeee!