F-odd: fishy cheese

This is the first in my series of odd food, the aptly named F-odd (take that as you will).

At Muji, one of my favorite stores for foodstuffs of the crazy Japanese (insert a humorous shake of head here), I found a small packet in their promotional area.

Curious, I picked up what appeared to be small, perfectly square marshmallows.

Upon prodding, they seemed a little bit firm so I turned the packet over to discover that they were "Cheese & Cod Snack w/Black Pepper". If you don't believe me, here's the label.

<------ Although some of you might be thinking "Ewww, that sounds gross!". I obviously thought "Eww, that sounds gross....I'm going to eat it!" All in the sake of science, of course.
So I did. After careful selection and discarding all the ones I smooshed earlier in my curiousness, I selected a packet and took it home for testing in my specially designed lab aka kitchen.

Each piece was tiny. In fact, what you see on screen is probably close to actual size. It also appeared to be two wafer thin piece of dried cod fish sandwiching a 'filling' of cheese studded with black pepper. It smelled completely inoffensive but not like much at all.

I had a bite.

My first thought was "Ooh, you can really taste the black pepper". It was quite salty and dry (as you can see from the layery-ness of the photo). Not oozy or cheesey in texture nor in taste. In fact, it didn't taste cheesy or cod-y at all but it did have the warmth of the black pepper.

I shoved a piece into the boy's mouth before he could ask what it was.

His thoughts? "It would go nice with beer."

Although in his mind all foods go well with beer, I have to say he was spot on with this one. It is definitely one to go with a beer after work, just like those crazy Japanese men like to do! (those crazy Japanese......!)