Thursday, March 7, 2019

Pudding CORN BUH-BAH~!

Crown Pudding Corn BBA  - H-Mart
I have no idea how "BBA" is meant to be pronounced, it could be "bee bee ey," or it could be "BUH-BAH!" Since the characters are in all caps on the bag I imagine it being yelled in exclamation. Although I am 99% sure my pronunciation of it is incorrect, I am going to stick with it because it makes me nonsensically happy. CORN BUH-BAH!
Not only do these have a fun name, but they are also banana flavored! (If you're new here, spoiler alert, I freaking love banana.) I tried looking these up online to learn a little more about it, and not much turned up. Just a MunchPak page where this was once a featured item. Oh, and this page where it says the item was recalled. And this page. No big deal. Totally fine. 
If I hadn't Googled this for nonsensical reasons, I never would have known about the recall, which is scary to think about. Thankfully, it seems the recall was due to an undeclared dairy ingredient which some people with dairy allergies reacted to. With my history of buying interesting foreign foods that usually have stickers with translated nutritional information, I can see how the slip up occurred. There have been a lot of labels I have seen over the years with incorrect or mislabeled translations. Whatever software they use to create those seems to have the same accuracy as Google translate. Being the non-dairy-allergy risk taker I am...I'm going to eat these anyway.
Design-wise, this is so fun! We have bright CMYK colors, a pop of metallic, halftone, comic-like speech bubbles, and bold illustrations. This reminds me of the SUPER line of candies I've had in the past, which also have a pop-art look to them, but the art-nerd in me wonders if this was a reference to Andy Warhol's screen printed banana? I noticed this on the shelves thanks to the bright colors and fun graphics, but I bought it because of "CORN BUH-BAH!" I just scream it in my head in increasingly weirder vocal tones. But not in real life, because I'm not a crazy person. There's no big story to tell, it just makes me really happy to look at and to pronounce. Everything about this is amazing! Except...
The back panel has me...concerned. In the section labeled "Special Features," there is a line stating that the black "corn germs" are edible. Umm, what? Corn germs? Corn germs. What does that even mean? I have no idea, and neither does Google? Stop the ride, I want to get off. Welp, I guess I may be eating some corn germs today. (Didn't see that in my horoscope.)
When opened, the puffs inside smell sweet, banana-y and artificial. No corn germs in sight. Honestly, these smell exactly like banana flavored, orange colored, Circus Peanuts. If you're a Circus Peanut hater, you're in for a bad time. Me? I like to munch on them from time to time but they quickly overwhelm me, so 3-5 of them is my limit. I'm intrigued by the scent, but hopeful that they will taste differently. 
Each corn doodle (as I like to call them) is light and airy, like a pale, naked, Cheeto, with a stripe of confectionery creme. The creme is soft to the touch and oddly pliable, like Oreo creme.   
I took a bite and...Oh man. Styrofoam-city. The puffed curl tastes like almost nothing on it's own, it's crispy, and crunchy, but it melts in your mouth in a way that I'd imagine biodegradable packing peanuts would, and it's a real let down. All of the banana flavoring is limited to the thin stripe of creme. On it's own, the creme is delicious. It has a mellow, creamy, banana pudding flavor that I love, but there's not that much of it, and the packing-peanut base isn't doing it any favors. 
Bummer. All this greatness is foiled by a lack-luster corn doodle base. If the corn puff had some banana flavoring, or even a mild sweetness, these would be fantastic. Sadly, they're too bland and styrofoam-like. Which could be a blessing in disguise, since these are no longer available and what with the recall and all, but I'll always have, "CORN BUH-BAH!" 
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