After reading about the coming Choco Pie Revolution in North Korea, Crikey goes to Melbourne’s Asian grocers to discover what the Choco Pie is all about.
And the taste?
Utterly underwhelming. Political revolution was not incited.
“Too dry!” declared Crikey editor Jonathan Green.
“It needs jam,” agreed Sophie Black. “If it was a Wagon Wheel, then I’d overthrow the government.”
“It would take more than Choco Pie to stop me being an anarcho-syndicalist,” said First Dog on the Moon, before complaining of stomach pains.
“I’m in the middle of eating a banana,” said the always contrary Andrew Crook.
Read the rest on your own.
(HT to Hamel)
{ 46 comments… read them below or add one }
“… a poor man’s Wagon Wheel.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.
North Korea, on the other hand, has the ultimate solution for the West’s obesity problem. I believe this untapped synergy potential may be the key for achieving peace and understanding.
Give me a Ding Dong or a Twinkie any day over a Choco Pie.
twinkie has a bad after taste.
ditto for ding dong.
Maybe I am Korean. Give me the Lotte knock off, Orion choco pie.
You should know the quality of the snack drops every year, because Orion resists raising the price. Thus, cheaper and less quality ingredients. I’m gonna guess the Lotte version is better quality.
In the South, Moon Pie seems to be actually popular.
i always figured the twinkie would be better off without the creamy white stuff.
But, then, why would I eat a twinkie?
what I realized all these years was that when I opened a twinkie, what I really wanted was corn bread in my mouth.
It’s just different taste buds. Koreans simply do not like extremely rich sweet chocolate or other very sweet desserts. I don’t know if white people run into the same problem, but I’ve known a lot of Koreans who feel nauseous after having slices of rich sweet cakes and other kinds of desserts. I wouldn’t be surprised if its different biological chemicals in the brain. Koreans prefer Asian style pastries, breads, and cakes which are mildly sweet. I always buy my desserts in China town bakery stores for cakes and pastries – they are more to my taste bud. I myself cannot eat super rich sweet western style icings on cakes. It literally makes me sick.
This liberation by Choco Pie business reminds me of the heady days of Perestroika. It was a big deal when the first McDonalds opened in Moscow. Tom Clancy had all kinds of references about Russian fetish for Big Macs in his books. I eagerly anticipate a North Korean Yakov Smirnoff emerging from the wood works any day now…
in a rare show,
I do agree with cm.
I prefer Japanese style/Korean style/Chinese style pastry bakeries, avoiding Chinese ones if possible, due to fear of fake whatevers being used to shave costs. You won’t find many Japanese style ones in North America, because the Japanese seem to actually like living in Japan, all things considered.
Pretty much never buy even cookies from the local supermarket’s bakery.
for the sake of trying something new, will and do try any touted French/Italian business in the area,
and occasionally try the Nordic ones or the Russian/Ukranian etc ones.
otherwise, it’s the same as asking me to drink a budweiser just because it’s the local product produced in quantity, it’s the cheapest, etc. Avoid if possible.
Never learned to love the Snickers Bar, either. I don’t understand the fascination with it.
#6 cm:
It’s just different taste buds. Koreans simply do not like extremely rich sweet chocolate or other very sweet desserts. I don’t know if white people run into the same problem, but I’ve known a lot of Koreans who feel nauseous after having slices of rich sweet cakes and other kinds of desserts. I wouldn’t be surprised if its different biological chemicals in the brain. Koreans prefer Asian style pastries, breads, and cakes which are mildly sweet. I always buy my desserts in China town bakery stores for cakes and pastries – they are more to my taste bud. I myself cannot eat super rich sweet western style icings on cakes. It literally makes me sick.
Our sweet-tooth is a result of evolution endowing us with sugar detectors to seek out foods loaded high energy carbohydrates like fruit. There is nothing intrinsically “sweet” about glucose or fructose. It’s a hallucination created by the mind.
With that said, a Choco-Pie, Twinkie…rich sweet junk food are what are known as “super-normal stimuli”. I largely blame this on the subsidized corn industry in the US. The ubiquitous use of high fructose corn syrup had escalated the “arms race” of sugar in the American junk food industry. Hence, our obesity epidemic.
On the other hand, ever since the Portuguese discovered red chili peppers in the New World and found its way to Chosun, Koreans, for whatever damn reason, decided to overload on this stuff. Gochu-jang is to Koreans what high fructose corn syrup is to Americans.
But not in all Korea. Apparently, kimchi in North Korea is normally white. My paternal grandmother, who was born and raised in a Northern maul, never saw red kimchi until she met my grandfather, whose maul was in the South.
Taste preferences are part nature, part nurture. I just finished reading a fascinating book called The End of Overeating, which explains the science of why more and more Americans are eating themselves into obesity. Just as eating lots of chili peppers desensitizes the palate, thus requiring more spice, so does adding sweeteners like sugar or HFCS throw off the taste buds so that foods which aren’t supposed to taste sweet, like spaghetti sauce, contain HFCS or some other sweetener, which works synergically with salt and fat to stimulate overeating.
I myself cannot eat super rich sweet western style icings on cakes. It literally makes me sick. cm@6
Are you lactose intolerant? My (Asian) wife has the same problem, and believes it’s because of the milk.
#10 Sonagi:
Just as eating lots of chili peppers desensitizes the palate, thus requiring more spice.
I blame it on Vasco da Gama and other 15th century Europeans who just had, HAD to find that sea route to India.
…which explains the science of why more and more Americans are eating themselves into obesity.
I blame it on Christopher Columbus who just had, HAD to find that sea route to India and ended up discovering the New World….Caribbean sugar cane plantations run by the British with slave labor…discovery of cacao beans…one thing led to another…chocolate…attributable for white people’s addiction to sweet confections.
I eagerly anticipate a North Korean Yakov Smirnoff emerging from the wood works any day now… NetKim @7
You’re gonna regret those words, Cowboy.
In DPRK, we’re so hungry that “Boys over Flowers” is what’s for dinner.
In DPRK, we’re so hungry that “Seoul” is only part of cow we can eat.
In DPRK, we’re so hungry that 밥먹었니 (Have you eaten?) is punchline to joke, not greeting.
What a country! (Seriously, are you going to finish that cracker?)
WeikuBoy, I don’t know how to say this delicately…but uh…don’t quit your day job.
In the South, you watch TV. In the North, the TV watches YOU!
In the South, you go find party. In the North, the Party finds YOU!
Choco Pies are not what a Westerner expects to taste the first five or six times around just going by the picture on the box; they are an acquired taste, certainly. but once you are here a couple of years and all the HFC crap from Commercutopian America washes out of your system, the molded waxy chocolate and faux marshmallow filling becomes something you appreciate much more. but imagine if all you got to eat for years was tree bark soup and mud pie?
these slanderers have no real perspective on the situation. the more Choco Pies that seep into the DPRK, the safer everyone on the peninsula will be.
In DPRK, we have “ordered” sex lives.
[pause]
Our prettiest girls are “ordered” to sleep with Dear Leader.
In DPRK, even most humble comrade ajosshi is legally entitled to correct the behavior of slave foreign language teachers at all times, and to make sure unqualified unethical
barbarianforeign degenerates never forget proper place 5000 year civilized society (below dog, above snake).[silence]
Robert Wagner, distinguished actor: [clears throat] “Umm, we do that, too.”
I have long thought that what a Choco Pie needs is a good dash of strawberry jam (definitely not “jelly”). Yes, folks, a Choco Pie is a poor man’s Wagon Wheel. And the sooner Korea starts importing the latter from Australia, the sooner Crappo Pies can be pushed into extinction (or donated to the North).
I would like to inform the Hoju contingency that outbursts of Junk Food Nationalism over this “Wagon Wheel” will not be tolerated.
Great point. A liberal dash of sugar also goes into much Korean food from pepper paste to kalbi. However, Americans eat more processed foods which combine complex carbohydrates, sugars and fats into a potent, addictive mix. Korean foods have more fiber, less fat and few complex carbs.
Interesting observations.
Next time you use some gochujang, check the ingredients label — chances are that the second ingredient on the list is HFCS (!)
I think you’re confusing complex with refined. Non-starch vegetables and unrefined whole grains are complex carbs. Koreans eat lots of non-starch vegetables. Americans don’t. Our favorite vegetable is the potato, a glycemic bomb usually fattened up with butter or fried in oil. Consuming lots of simple carbs and fat in the same meal facilitates weight gain as both forms of energy compete to be metabolized by the body. Both Koreans and Americans consume grains mostly in refined forms like white rice, pasta, bread, and other baked goods.
There’s other chemical junk, too, like MSG or MSG-like flavor additives such as autolyzed yeast protein and hydrolyzed soy protein, plus preservatives like suspected carcinogen sodium benzoate, which, BTW, is found in greater quantities in beverages like Coke than what is permissible in potable tap water.
White folks call it “heartburn in a bottle”.
Black people call it “suicide sauce”.
Mexicans call it “ketchup”.
In the Asian ghettos of America: “rooster sauce” or Sriracha.
http://baconsyrup.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/dd5f0e939d83933572f924737d017758.jpg
The self-respecting gyopo puts this hot sauce on everything.
North Korean Yakov Smirnoff says:
I understand you Americans have had a fad called “Atkins Diet” not too long ago. Then after that the “South Beach Diet”. Diet Coke, diet Pepsi, diet this…diet that….you’re all still FAT!
I am coming out with a new book called “The North Korean Diet”, only $29.95 per copy. You WILL lose weight, I guarantee.
What a country!
I have a big bottle of sriracha in my fridge. My favorite breakfast is a frittata topped with that garlicky hot sauce.
Virginia residents are advised to check out Sabrosa fire-roasted salsa. It’s made locally and is preserved only with salt and vinegar. The fire-roasted tomatoes taste a bit like sun-dried, and the natural flavor of the salsa is far superior to any national brand.
“Koreans simply do not like extremely rich sweet chocolate or other very sweet desserts. I don’t know if white people run into the same problem, but I’ve known a lot of Koreans who feel nauseous after having slices of rich sweet cakes and other kinds of desserts. I wouldn’t be surprised if its different biological chemicals in the brain.”
I’m the refutation of your post. My favorite deserts are those Indian rice balls, the name of which I don’t recall. They are ultra sweet and buttery. I even rather like the taste of condensed sweetened milk. I don’t find it overly sweet. But I guess it all depends. I don’t like honey straight from the jar, and I’d take a choco pie over a twinkie any day, although choco pie with jam sounds like a most pleasant idea.
I guess I’m like the Korean version of Winnie the Pooh with a can of sweetened milk in his paws.
One of the first things I noticed about Korean milk when I went to Korea was the taste of its milk. Very sweet. Very creamy.
But I also noticed that Koreans regard cereal as a desert type of food. Whereas Americans eat cereal, peanut-buttery Captain Crunch and all that, for dietary reasons, or as wholesome part of the traditonal breakfast meal. I didn’t realize how culturally different I was from koreans were till I had discovered this single difference.
desert -> dessert
etcetera…
#26 Sonagi:
I have a big bottle of sriracha in my fridge. My favorite breakfast is a frittata topped with that garlicky hot sauce.
No way! Mad props, sister. *fist-bump*
@ Net Kim:
I don’t do fist bumps.
That’s probably because you’ve never tasted great honey. I’ve been taking a spoonful of local wildflower honey, which is supposed to relieve minor allergies. It seems to be helping. The very best honey I’ve ever tasted is manuka flower honey from New Zealand. Incredibly rich flavor. Store-bought honey is crap, and even most locally bottled stuff is just repackaged clover honey from North Dakota. As long as the container is not contaminated, honey will last for years.
Considering how much sugar is in ordinary breakfast cereals, Koreans are right to consider it as dessert. There is nothing wholesome about most breakfast cereals. Even if they’re low in sugar per serving (and most people consume more than the listed serving amount) and contain whole grain flours, they’re still mostly refined carbs with added vitamins to make them appear healthy. If one must have cereal, then warm cereal made from kasha or oats seasoned with a little cinnamon is better than any cold cereal.
Some other observations:
There’s never enough raisins and other sweet stuff in yok pop. I like yok pop with a lot of raisins.
I like the grapes that Koreans eat so much better than the sort Americans typically eat. American grapes tend to be very sweet, like thinly saccharine. Whereas there’s a fuller flavor to the Korean sort. I also notice that the difference in flavor shows up in the candy. I prefer Korean candy grapes to American candy grapes.
All the those duks with bean paste in them are always a let down because the bean paste gives the Americanized kyopo an illusion of chocolately goodness, but there’s no chocolate. Bean paste is wannabe chocolate.
Shikgyeh is the one Korean beverage/dessert that I’d love to introduce my American friends to. My mom used to make huge pots of them in the Winter. Here’s an example of Korean food that may be restrained in its sweetness, but at the perfect pitch. I love it. I have great memories of it.
The best part of eating a meal with bulgogi is eating the rice soaked up in its sugary juices.
My favorite duk is fresh ssool duk. The aroma and softness is wonderful. Not sweet at all.
My favorite deserts are those Indian rice balls, the name of which I don’t recall. They are ultra sweet and buttery. abcdefg @27
I believe you’re referring to gulab jamun (iirc), which a co-worker of mine in a time and place when we frequented Indian buffets used to refer to as “we be jammin balls”. Cute?
Actually, Korean 호떡 (ho-ddeok) is one of the best sweet treats I’ve encountered anywhere; and the best 호떡 (imho) is from a particular cart along the main tourista drag in Insadong.
North Korean Yakoff Smirnoff says,
In West, you take diets. In DPRK, diet takes you.
In West, you have disordered sex lives. In DPRK, prettiest girls are ordered to sleep with Dear Leader. (just in case you missed it yesterday; I’m proud of that one.) What a country!
It’s not that most Koreans don’t like sweets but rather that they like different things to be sweet than most westerners. Just try Korea beer (bitter beer probably wouldn’t be a good match for the loaded with MSG and somewhat spicy Korean dishes), snack food (potato chips are supposed to be salty, dammit!), and bread (yes, even the stuff that isn’t supposed to be pastry).
“I would like to inform the Hoju contingency that outbursts of Junk Food Nationalism over this “Wagon Wheel” will not be tolerated.”
If you ever had a Wagon Wheel, you’d understand. Choco Pies are truly underwhelming.
Given that the North Korean government makes a huge fuss every time it allows a few sweets to North Korean children, I can see how the workers in Kaesong would be happy to get the relatively bland South Korean snack.
BTW, ever had North Korean food? It’s has a more rounded flavour than South Korean food…which is to say that it is relatively bland (no MSGs, less or no red pepper powder and sauce).
Shigole South Korean Smirnoff says:
In West, you clothe and pamper the doggy
In Korea, we beat and eat the doggy. That’s a “good doggy”!
Ohhkay. That’s my time, folks! Good night!
“Gulab jamun” be jammin’ indeed. I love it.
The perfect world is one in which instead of Dunkin Donut munchkins at work, there’s be a box of Gulab Jammin balls at work.
If I had a dozen of those right now, I’d totally inhale them.
Funny how I was eating like a diabetic for three years until the past 6-8 months. My health is going down the shitter, but I’m still in good shape. My pecs still ripple, yo.
@abc:
Only by the description of your post could I figure out that “yok pop” is 약밥 .
Most fruit sold in US supermarkets was grown in California, Florida, or Texas, and bred for longevity and durability, not flavor. The very best fruit is locally grown, and lucky for me, my local farmers’ market sells nearly every kind of temperate fruit in season: strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, red and black currants, four varieties of plum, watermelon, cantaloupes, sweet and sour cherries, apricots, nectarines, peaches, green, red, and purple grapes, six varieties of apple, and four varieties of pear. I have far more choices in my local market than I ever had in Korea, even including imported fruits. Koreans throw away the most nutritious part of grapes and apples by peeling off the pesticide-laden skin.
“strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, red and black currants, four varieties of plum, watermelon, cantaloupes, sweet and sour cherries, apricots, nectarines, peaches, green, red, and purple grapes, six varieties of apple, and four varieties of pear.”
I sublimate a lot so that list is like pornography to me. I’d hit it.
Since I’m ranting about food and comparing stuff, anyone notice how all the highly caffeinated energy drinks in America- Monster, Red Bull, et al- taste like those Korean/Asian herbal drinks, the ones that come in small brown glass bottle? There must be a link.
I might be a little late to this party, but a few thoughts:
1. Rooster Poop rocks! I used to even keep a bottle of it in my car for “emergencies”.
2. Most people are hinting aroud this, but I think one thing that needs to be pointed out about sugar consumption is the balance of things. I think the high consumption of salt in the Korean diet via pickling explains the over use of pepper in Korea. A common cook tip is if you over salt a dish, adding pepper takes away some of the “salty” taste. Likewise sugar with vinegar, which explains why sugar goes into vingar-y concoctions like gochujang, bulgogi marinades, etc.
3. Just because its old, does not mean its good. Take a look at disease rates for aliments related to malnutrition in the past. You will likely find a balance between the sickness of the skinny of then and the sickness of the fat. Just because “traditional” diets were lower in something does not mean they are good diets. I try to remeber this as people like my ex-wife tout how healthy a traditional Korean diet is.
4. Likewise about how “more” healthy it is to eat only Korean food. What do you think the outcome would be of a “Super-size Me” documentary where I eat nothing but Samguysal and drink Soju every night? Hey its all Korean! its more healthy right?
5. Jarred pasta sauce has base of tomatoes, a fruit, So pasta sauce is supposed to be a little sweet. They add sugar not to “addict” people, but to give a product at consistant levels of sweetness (tomatoes, like any fruit, vary source to source, year to year…). Whether fructose is the best option, or whether consuming that consistancy is good, is a diffent question. Just because it has sugar of some sort when you expect it not to is not damning evidence.
“…but to give a product at consistant levels of sweetness (tomatoes, like any fruit, vary source to source, year to year…). ”
More precisely, sugar is added when someone wants to hide the acidity.
So in every factory do they taste test the tomatoes before determining the right amount of sweetener to add to the large vats? I think not. They add the same amount of sweetener regardless, which should make some jars sweeter and some less sweet if the sweetness of the tomatoes varies. Sugar is not added to spaghetti sauce to addict consumers. It is added to make it more palatable to tongues accustomed to eating sweetened food.
#38 Sonagi:
Most fruit sold in US supermarkets was grown in California, Florida, or Texas, and bred for longevity and durability, not flavor. The very best fruit is locally grown, and lucky for me, my local farmers’ market sells nearly every kind of temperate fruit in season: strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, red and black currants, four varieties of plum, watermelon, cantaloupes, sweet and sour cherries, apricots, nectarines, peaches, green, red, and purple grapes, six varieties of apple, and four varieties of pear. I have far more choices in my local market than I ever had in Korea, even including imported fruits.
It is also socially-conscientious because you are reducing your carbon footprint. I think every household should have their own garden; a plot of land to grow fruits or vegetables. Every citizen should be trained and skilled in the arts of cultivation.
I forgot to mention that my local farmer also sells figs from a neighbor’s tree. I buy several of them on Saturday when they are in season, and by mid-afternoon they are gone. I thought only Californians could enjoy the truly sublime fruity sweetness of fresh, ripe figs. Her husband grows aronia berries, with the highest antioxidant power of any fruit, including acai. They are so incredibly tart that most are processed into juices and jellies with added sweeteners. I pluck them off the stem, pop them into my mouth, and pucker as the tannins release their tartness. The farmer brings one quart for me when they’re in season as no one else buys them.
There is a new sentimental Coca-Cola commercial that is making the rounds these days targeted at Hispanics.
I don’t know if anyone’s seen it yet. There are at least two varieties but the one I am thinking of portrays a working-class Hispanic drinking a bottle of Coca-Cola while looking at his very young daughter playing with dolls and a toy stethoscope and he spontaneously lapses into a reverie where it shows a grown-up version of his daughter who is now a medical doctor.
I think this commercial is richly deserving of parody.
“I thought only Californians could enjoy the truly sublime fruity sweetness of fresh, ripe figs.”
You should try some of the plums that my dad grows in his backyard in Canada. Best plums I’ve ever had.
People do need to start growing their own produce. There are so many better varieties of fruit and vegetables than the ones sold at the supermarket.
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