Eva got some maple candy to send to penpals in England and Australia

[conuly]

(We decided the penpal in Ontario probably doesn't need more maple in her life.)

...are you familiar with the idea that I tend to go overboard? Yeeeeeeah. So now I have a question, though ultimately this is all going to boil down to "the maple, grape, and root beer candies we've got sitting in our pantry" anyway: It's easy to find out what American candies you don't have in England and/or Australia. Are there any savory snacks that are lightweight and yummy that you don't have?

Comments

[st_aurafina]

We don't have much in the way of pretzels and crackers of that sort in Australia, or things like puppy chow (is that sweet or savoury, I'm not actually sure?) We don't do a lot of stuff like jerky and rinds beyond the basics.

Oh, and we only have, like, three flavours of Doritos: plain, cool ranch and spicy cheese. And I saw a video on youtube of Emmy taste-testing a bunch of Lays flavoured chips - our chips flavours are basically: salt and vinegar, chicken, bbq, cheese and onion.

You could send breakfast cereals, too - from what I can tell you have approximately a billion cereals over there. (There's this mixed snack pack of cereals you can get here that's six different single serves in one, it's the classic thing you take camping and everyone fights over who has to eat the plain cornflakes.)

[conuly]

Puppy chow? The only puppy chow I know if is for actual puppies...?

Doritos: So no Sweet Chili or Salsa Verde? (Then again, I can't find Salsa Verde Doritos in NYC either, and I loves them, my precioussssss.)

Chips: CHICKEN FLAVORED CHIPS!?!?

(But no Sour Cream and Onion or Onion and Garlic?)

What about cheez doodles? They're puffy and, well, cheezy?

[st_aurafina]

I think puppy chow is some kind of trail mix? With, like, that waffly-looking breakfast cereal mixed in? IDK, I'm going from photos on pinterest, not the best source. (Google is telling me it's chex cereal, with powdered sugar and chocolate chips, so I guess it's a sweet thing? AKA muddy buddies, apparently.)

You can get sour cream and chives, and to be honest, it tastes like cool ranch to me? I'm not entirely sure what cool ranch is supposed to taste like, to be honest. No onion and garlic. No sweet chili or salsa verde doritos that I've seen.

Chicken flavour is totally a thing over here, you need to know about chicken salt. (Buzzfeed on Chicken Salt. Get your penpal to send chicken salt. *nods*

No cheese doodles (doodle is baby talk for penis over here, so that's going to be worth a laugh) but we have twisties which come in cheese and chicken:

[conuly]

I'm not entirely sure what cool ranch is supposed to taste like, to be honest.

It's supposed to taste like ranch dressing.

You got those twists in a puffy variety?

[st_aurafina]

lilacsigil says they look like Cheetos? But I haven't seen cheetos for years, so I'm not sure if they're still a thing, even.

From the ingredients in ranch dressing, I can see why it might taste like sour cream to me.

[conuly]

I guess they do look like Cheetos, but they come in two versions, crunchy and puffy. Crunchy ones are hard. Puffy ones are big and sort of soft.

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

This is rather difficult to answer,  as the chances are that if we don't have them here in the UK,  I don't know that they exist at all.
I met some savoury things in the USA  that we don't have here but they were all hot, cooked, and messy.
The impression I've got is that American snacks are far more likely to be sweet than ours, so finding savoury items that are legal to post may well be hard.

[conuly]

The impression I've got is that American snacks are far more likely to be sweet than ours, so finding savoury items that are legal to post may well be hard.

That's certainly possible, though my grocery store might beg to differ.

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

A thought. Savoury things that I don't find yummy, but others presumably do.
Is a "graham cracker" a savoury thing? I've heard of them as a recipe ingredient.
I seem to remember being offered little packs of dry cracker-like objects to go with soup or salad when eating out. I wouldn't call them yummy, more like tasteless crunchy cardboard, but we don't have them here. Saltines? Something like that? I may have the name wrong as they weren't at all salty.
I've heard mention of "kosher salt". I have no clue how this differs from normal salt, since its being ritually slaughtered seems unlikely.
On the supermarket shelves devoted to American things,  one can sometimes find packs of dried add-water-and-stir "mac and cheese" (not macaroni cheese, though Ihave yet to figure out the difference). The results seem to be bright orange.
Any packet sauce mixes that we'd find odd?

[conuly]

1. Graham crackers are usually pretty sweet. I think they're supposed to be similar to "digestive biscuits"?

2. Saltines are nobody's favorite snack, but I can at least get little packets for free at Nanen's chemo session. How about Ritz crackers?

3. Kosher salt has big crystals, and is not iodized. I asked once why it's called kosher - turns out, it's the salt you use to kasher meat, that is, to make it kosher by getting the blood out.

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

We have Ritz crackers, and very nice too.

Another thought: we ate in Taco Bell once, to see what it was like (note "once"), and were presented with little plastic packets of sort of multi-coloured crunchy strips of something. Possibly strips of tortilla? I think they were meant to be put on salad. Again, I didn't find them yummy, but presumably someone does since they exist.

Bacon-related things? We have quite a variety over here but I think you may have more.