a) How many people had to sign off on these to bring Vea’s Thai Coconut Mini Crunch Bar into existence? b) How much money could they possibly make to have them worth producing when they aren’t an obvious choice of the busy parent/weed-related snacking/slumber party junk-food-saturnalia markets? c) What time of day snack niche do they fill? e) What did the worker in the manufacturing plant think of them on the first day they rolled out?

To get you oriented, I’ll describe the Thai Coconut Mini Crunch Bar. No, let’s have the company do that. I picked up the bag to read: “Thai-inspired flavor with coconut and a hint of ginger and real ingredients.” While the visual appeal was minimal—the close-up photo of the bar conjured up the slice of mystery food-punishment served in the SHU in Orange Is the New Black—let’s recognize other somewhat appalling-looking things can taste FANTASTIC. All right, I thought, I’m game. I do like Thai food (although I make no claims to literacy in its subtleties and sublimities). How much these bars would taste like actual Thai, even Thai-ish food, what could a sane person’s expectations be: not superhigh. I like mini things (and promise delivered: they were quite small—1.5 x .75 inch? I appreciate any truth in advertising one can find, but man it’s a hard slog mining for nuggets among the mini crunch wasteland).

After two wee bars, I lost momentum, never a good snack sign. If I’d written the copy at this juncture mine would be “small baffling rectangles of food for the inattentive eater with nominal interests in world food-adventures.”

If it sounds like I didn’t like them, I didn’t. But then, I was never going to. I failed to see the first ingredient was sweet potatoes, a root vegetable that despite my wrinkled little nose and utterances of “blech,” you people seem to think I just haven’t met the right one yet. The only way I’ve ever consumed sweet potatoes willingly is when the flavor is almost entirely obfuscated by grease, salt, jazzy french fry powders, sugar and cinnamon (basically doctored oatmeal), marshmallows, as a secondary ingredient of a pureed soup, or in a pie I am pretending is pumpkin. In all cases there is some lying back and thinking of England. Thai Coconut Mini Crunch Bars didn’t have a chance, let’s face it.

However, the Snack Reviewer calling is a sacred one, and I knew I must try to transcend my aversion. Once more into breach, I reached into the crinkly bag and began champing anew, urging my brain to just sort of shove aside the sweet potato taste to see yes, what the hell, pray tell, was going on.

I tasted coconut, yes, maybe more phantasmal than the packaging suggested, but there all the same. The ginger flavor, real or chemically remastered, eluded me but that might not have been a bad thing(?) however much I heart ginger.

The crunch was strongest part of the enterprise. I am, generally speaking, a fan of desiccation in food—leads to such interesting textures, no?—and these do have the look of something that were left out in the sun too long or mummified in the tomb of Ramesses II (that latter is less snide than a weakness for hyperbole and a chance to bring up Ancient Egypt, which always makes life more interesting). The results are pleasing.

My second go at Thai Coconut Mini Crunch Bars led me no closer to clarifying when you’d eat them. Your late-morning elevenses? Mid-afternoon treat with your coffee? Hard to imagine them appearing in the usual carrot sticks and/or chips PB&J corallary spot. Midnight when you’re trying to not eat a bag of BBQ waffle potato chips? I’m not sure how much better these are for you but: could be.

Thai Coconut Mini Crunch Bars might be more useful as a basis for conversation about capitalism than snackage. Or such a conversation should be required in tandem with their consumption. There’s something a bit cynical in their production, coat-tailing as it does on various foodie trends in a such a cursory manner. Quelle surprise, Gilmore. I assume market research found them as potentially viable as they very well may be proving to be. How strange we are in the U.S. Should I be getting in on this racket? You tell me, friend.

For now I’m just trying to figure out the best exeunt of these bars from my life. I wouldn’t give them to the squirrels unless I was sure no harm could come to some of Goddo’s dearest furry beasties, although if squirrels are eating so much pizza these days how bad could these be? Denoting Thai Coconut Mini Crunch Bars as squirrel-food could seem like I’ve been disingenuously hedging from just saying flat-out saying “I hated them.” But no. I would tell you if I hated them. Sacred trust, as I said, this snack review business. You might find them agreeable. I will say this though: I doubt you would love them.

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