Fun Japanese Snacks That Go With Beer: “Otsumami”

There’s a special category of snacks made to be consumed with alcohol called otsumami (oh-tsoo-MAH-mee), which encompasses everything from those persimmon seed-shaped spicy rice crackers with peanuts (Kakipea) to dried, shredded ika (squid) which tastes better the longer you live here. There’s almost no end to the variety of these snacks, and every convenience store will sport a well-stocked selection near its beer, wine and sake. Some of these snacks are relatively well-known outside Japan, like the edamame soybeans that are great to pop into your mouth on summer nights at the beer garden, while others are more obscure, such as chi-kama sausage made of pressed fish and jalapeno cheese, Pretz-type stick snacks, and various types of canned fish. The other evening I was having a glass of wine with Mrs. J-List and she pulled out a bag of snacks she’d bought that day, offering some to me. Unfortunately it was one of my least favorite foods in the world: tiny dried anchovies, which she proceeded to eat eat like Cheetos, scooping up the little heads that had broken off and fallen to the bottom of the bag. *shudder.*

Mozart and Beethoven love Kameda™ Brand rice crackers.