Nostalgic Noms, ZOTZ! & Super Steak

You remember them, don't you? Those days of your by-gone past that were spent enjoying things, simply enjoying them. You were old enough to be out on your own and that meant you had freedom to roam and sometimes a small amount of cash but you were young enough that the stresses of the world weren't your problem yet and you were left to the irresponsibility of youth, that same irresponsibility of youth that was inevitably and ostensibly associated with junk-food, the junk-food which no matter who you were or where you came from brought that special pang of joy to your heart and made you warm and fuzzy inside.

Perhaps the warm and fuzzy feeling was from love, perhaps it was something less foolish and puerile and more logical such as the blood in your heart coagulating and becoming warmer because it was stopping up in your very veins from the shite you were eating, whatever it was the feeling was there and the feeling was good. We can understand why some slip so peacefully into the embrace of death when we feel like that, wouldn't have been hard to slip away happily in one of those moments of bygone bliss.

Fruit Leather:

We will go ahead and start the party off with the subject of the aptly named 'Fruit Leather' junk-food, a snack that was developed during the 1960s not by General Mills as many may believe from the Fruit Roll-Ups domination of the fruit leather market but by a man named Louis Shalhoub and his Father, Joseph Shalhoub. They developed a product which was a pressed apricot sheet that was dried and sold by the foot and officially known as 'Shoe Leather' due to well.. It's leathery consistency, tough as it was tasty. It was only after the passing of his Father, Joseph Shalhoub that Louis decided to close down the bakery operations of his shop and focus on the production of the dried apricot fruit sheets, 'Shoe Leather', this was the birth of today's 'Fruit Roll-Up' and the Fruit Leather snack and in the late 1970s the company was joined together to form the company that it is today; Joseph Shalhoub & Son, Inc, Joray Candy.

That's right, folks. These are the first, the progenitor of the Fruit-Snack line known as Fruit Roll-Ups, Fruit Roll-Ups actually being a simple mimicry of the original Fruit-Roll, the Joray Fruit-Roll. I specifically remember and support Joray because they're the first Fruit-Roll I ever had and still to this day I believe in spite of their rarity (I haven't seen them in years so I haven't had one in forever.) that they are the best.

I remember my first encounter with the Joray Fruit-Roll was strolling through a Kroger one day after school. I had just come from a burger joint where I had eaten lunch at and was casually browsing the aisles while I blew time when I came to the snack-aisle. Back in these days there weren't fruit-snack aisles like there are today, one snack aisle was pretty much all there was to the store snack-wise and these dual aisles with an aisle for just cookies, candies, chips and such didn't exist; it was all in one area. And I remember having noticed these specifically because I'd never seen anything like them before and I instantly knew that I wanted them. My youthful irresponsibility set aflame by the prospect of a new junk-food I'd discovered that I presumed no one else had found because I'd never seen them around and if other kids hadn't had them then I'd be the first, I hastily bought up a box; display and all.

This is the interesting thing. The Joray Fruit-Roll is nothing like a Fruit Roll-Up, a Fruit Roll-Up is far more noticeably artificial. The Joray Fruit-Roll is clearly fruit from appearance right down to texture and taste, they are also superior by far in my opinion and were it's worth noting even less artificial in appearance because of their shape.

Whereas the Fruit Roll-Up is a perfectly square, cut, even and uniform piece of plastic looking stuff the Joray Fruit-Roll is far more rounded, full of speckles of fruit and uneven giving it a very 'fresh' and organic appearance.. Far more appetizing than this I'd say,

Uniformity is fine and well in some cases but when you're dealing with fruit, I don't know about you but I find the fresher looking product far more appetizing than the thing that looks like some cheap uniform factory-made plastic. Course Joray are more expensive than Fruit Roll-Ups but isn't that to be expected since they're not cutting costs by using tons of industrial crap, chemicals and preservatives to make a uniform and flat product? Yeah.. Vaguely justified I should think..

Taste-wise the Joray is also superior, while Fruit Roll-Ups have a more candy-like flavour and are far sweeter the Joray is better still by actually tasting like.. Oh, I don't know.. Fucking fruit!? - It's always interested me that Fruit Roll-Ups rarely taste like actual fruit and yet they get away with naming their product 'Fruit Roll-Up', what the hell? Admittedly some of the Fruit Roll-Ups are basic fruit flavours but they've got the majority of their line which are basically some strange amalgamation of flavours which make very little sense and aren't in any way natural fruit-flavours.. Green Apple does not scream..


Zotz Fizz Power Candy:

Zotz Fizz Power Candy, truly a treat to behold and akin to the Awesome Fizz Pop which was a candy lolli that once you reached it's center abruptly began to fizz violently, filling your mouth with so much rabid-drool-like froth. Zotz are a candy that was introduced in 1968, what's cool about the Zotz? The flavoured fizzy center, a little core of white that in spite of it's innocent appearances when contacted with saliva becomes a BOMB of flavour and foam! These are fuckin' cool and are a truly and incredibly fun candy, you gotta admit there's a wow factor in a candy that foams as much as these do and you don't understand just how much these fuckers foam until you've popped one yourself and tried it.

If you've never had a Zotz, do yourself a favour and order at least a few online or find them somewhere in a store, buy them one way or another and try them, THEY'RE SO FUCKING COOL.

They're not just cool either, Zotz are tasty little fuckers and you've never had a fizzing candy until you've had a Zotz or a Fizz Pop and since Fizz Pops are like literally impossible to find Zotz is your only choice because at least a Zotz is only near impossible to find.

Zotz flavours include lemon, orange, and grape and if I had to suggest then I'd say they're totally worth ordering online if you can afford them and hilariously awesome to have enough to put about ten in your mouth at one time and crunch them all at the same time resulting in a horrible mess of fizzing overspill that you cannot control.

Dinner:

Tamago de suteki (Steak on Eggs), that's tonight's dish! It came out rather brilliantly and looks quite nice, the steak cooked Tataki style (very rare on the inside and only seared on the outside), sitting upon the tamago (eggs) with satsumaimo (sweet potatoes) and mame (beans), on the sides an Anpan (Sweet Roll) and satsumaimomasshu (sweet potato mash) - The sauce I made? Secret blend Japanese steak sauce which I will not give the recipe out on, sorry but the key word is secret.

James ate this fairly quickly, I'm pretty sure he enjoyed it but he seemed tired so there wasn't much enthusiasm. Either way, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I think it looks quite nice.

 Second photograph brought to you by BEEFWASHARMEDFORTHISMEAL!©