Sometimes Foodie: Not Sure if I Would Have Called These "Snack Balls"

Herr's Cotton Candy Flavored Snack Balls - Ollie's Bargain Outlet $1.89

Not the most appetizing name...

I was immediately skeptical about this product, but it was so cheap that I figured it was worth the risk. Plus, it's blue!

The bag is a bright metallic pink color with stripes, stars, and blue puffs scattered about. It's not as garish as the cheese curl bags, but it's not going to be winning any design contests either. Still, the combination of pink and blue is giving off cotton candy vibes, and the typefaces are very boardwalk and carnival-ques, so it gets props for being on-theme and appealing.

My first impression was that these sucked.

All the flavoring is on the outside of these snacks, so even though the powdery blue coating is light and sweet like a cotton candy flavored breakfast cereal, the inside is bland corn-flavored nothingness. If you eat these one after the other in a mindless munching session, you're gonna have a bad time.

Being the frugal foodie I am, I hate wasting things. A product has to be REALLY inedible for me to rationalize throwing it away and these weren't that bad. I thought I would ~~pawn them off~~ share them with my family as we watched this week's Game of Thrones to see what they thought. (No spoilers, but only 2 episodes left this season?!)

I poured these into a small bowl for leisurely snacking, and as the episode went on I found that the bowl had been re-filled 3 times! Between the four of us the bag was nearly empty when the credits started rolling! If they sucked, how was this possible? The answer is, technique.

Crunchy snacks make noise when you chew them, and being the dedicated Game of Thrones fans we are, instead of crunching away at them and missing out on crucial dialog, we were savoring them. I personally liked to pop one in my mouth and vacuum-seal it until it collapsed upon itself. A satisfying process that created little to no crunching noises and allowed the cotton candy sweetness to prevail. Apparently, everyone else was doing the same or a slight variation.

By eating these slowly, the flavoring had a chance to really shine and in the end, these were pretty enjoyable. They're a lot like the fruity flavored corn puffs from Japan and Korea I've reviewed in the past. However, I don't think they were unique enough to warrant a repurchase or post-season stock-up. Those Asian corn-snacks are available year-round, so when this seasonal flavor disappears from the shelves I won't be shedding any tears, but for less than $2.00 a bag? It's not a bad value. I'd recommend giving these a try, you just need to take your time to enjoy it.