Modern flavor technology permits recreating almost any flavor. So a novelty company might have the idea of selling regional flavors in candy to tourists, like baked-bean flavor in Boston or sourdough flavor in San Francisco. Only the company that had the idea happened to be in Japan, which has strong traditions of regional specialties like stuffed squid in Hokodate and a kind of noodle soup in Hokkaido. Thanks to the internet, I was able to try some of these out. The flavors are genuinely interesting, and offer great potential for Trick or Treat.

America has given the world Twinkies™ and Hamburger Helper™, so it’s only fair that we embrace convenience foods from other cuisines. Indian food is a prime candidate for me because making anything beyond curry is a mystery. I frequent Indian markets from time to time to buy bulk spices like the aforementioned curry, cardamom for roasting lamb, and cumin. Recently, I found myself staring at shelves full of ready preparations for busy cooks, a gold mine for untutored cooks and eager eaters like me.

I firmly believe that love of smokey flavors is genetically encoded from the days of cavemen. In any case, it works for me. Barbecue is hot smoked, which means the food is cooked at oven temperatures in the presence of smoke from wood chips. Cold smoking is more difficult. Cold smoking is done between 80 degrees F and 100 degrees F, with smoking times from four hours to four days. The process relies on smoke to cure food instead of heat. Cold smoking is used for salmon, cheese, and … butter.

Mountain apples are common in the South Pacific and Southeast Asia. I didn’t know it, but there are several different fruits called mountain apple. We encountered the variety shown above at the ‘Imiloa lunch buffet, where they were served cold with a pinkish brown spice as a dessert. It is delicately flavored, crisp, and juicy, but not very sweet. Fans of mountain apples, scientific fans, that is, know this variety as syzygium samarangense, Note the exaggerated pear shape, which explains why it also sometimes called bellfruit. They are a beautiful bright red.

At a glance, Chinese pork strips look like bacon. Upon close examination they still look like bacon, albeit in long strips having an inch-square cross section. One difference is that they are very well cured, so well preserved that Asian markets may have a box of the strips left at room temperature like so much kindling. The flavor is distinct, with sweet spices along with allure of redundant pork fat. What more could a person want?

Cod roe are the eggs of codfish. The egg sacks are sold fresh, frozen, or canned. The fresh sacks may be burst and the eggs eaten fresh or salted and preserved as a type of caviar. The simplest preparation is to boil the sacks, and just slice it up and eat it. It is a very rich food, which I guess is what one would expect from a plate of eggs. The cooked flavor is mildly fishy, not as strong as some other fish roe. Cod roe is enjoyed from Scotland to Korea, and many places in between. I think it is a treat.

t’s perfectly logical. You wouldn’t expect a small child to tackle a great hulking anchovy, would you? I found the solution at the Hankook supermarket in Sunnyvale, California. It is “Baby Anchovies for Kids.”

Crawdads, a.k.a. crayfish, crawfish, or mudbugs, are tiny freshwater crustaceans built on the plan of lobsters. In the U.S. they are most associated with the Mississippi River delta, in Louisiana. 90% of the world’s crawdads come from Louisiana, but they are eaten worldwide, with Scandinavians especially fond of them. Not so many people know that California has a delta, but the crawdads know it. We traveled to Isleton in the heart of the Sacramento River Delta to sample a bucket of them.

There are still regional food products to be discovered. Utz “The Crab Chip”[R] Potato Chips are not crab flavored. They are flavored with proclaimed “Chesapeake Bay crab seasoning.” That’s an aromatic spice mixture. The spice works well with potato chips, making an exceptionally good product, worthy of export from the East Coast.

The Western world tends to celebrate New Year’s with liquid treats. However, the Lunar New Year is approaching, and that requires traditional New Year’s candy. When my wife told me of the candy tradition, I asked her to get some from the Oriental market to sample. None of the chocolate or peppermint nonsense, I tried kumquat, banana, coconut-durian, and sweet beans. The beans, while traditional, are not exactly candy. They are beans.