Smartfood Merry Berry Popcorn Mix
The holidays have come and gone. Seasonal aisles are newly stuffed with the pink and red hearts of Valentine’s Day. And yet, even in the grim gray of January, Christmas snacks still linger in Safeway’s cardboard displays. One such snack is Smartfood Merry Berry Popcorn Mix.
The Mix comes in a fully-stuffed sack. It has the requisite heft of a bag built to party, capable of dominating a snack table all on its own. The bag is glossy green, signaling festivity and health. Beneath a heavily photoshopped cob of corn, Cap’n Crunch throws his hands in the air. He gazes at the object of his pathological excitement, a bowl of green and red crunchberries. They are, as always, enlarged to show texture.
The seamless presentation glosses over the central issue. Popcorn and crunchberries do not belong together. This is the very definition of a mixed bag. I buy it anyway, hoping answers lie within. Spoiler: they do not.
The distribution of crunchberries is spitefully sparse. I feel conned. All my childhood experiences with “Oops, All Berries” primed me with a false sense of abundance. In every other place in the world, crunchberries are a scarce commodity. More the fool me, expecting Smartfood to satisfy.
Then again, we should be careful what we ask for. Crunchberries are too crunchy for their own good, their relentless texture shredding soft palates with every chomp. Their integrity is admirable, the crunch preserved in even the skimmest, deepest bath of milk, but the bodily cost is high. As a child, I kept chasing that gritty bite anyway, spoonful after spoonful, grateful for their explosively loud sweetness. A constant comfort for a latchkey kid.
To see them reduced to this—occasional errant guests swimming in a sea of popcorn—leaves me with a sense of betrayal. Not just for me, but also on behalf of the crunchberries.
I eat a handful, and betrayal is overwhelmed by confusion.
All flavor is concentrated in a strange powder, a fine dust that coats every poofy kernel with a cloying, acidic cheesiness. The kernels collapse under the gentlest bite, completely absent of crunch. All these kernels do is occupy space. They are a blank canvas smeared cereal leavings, the swept and sifted powder of a factory floor, bagged and shaken to coat.
Then, as is often the case with synthetic snack foods, numbness sets in. Tentative sampling becomes wanton mouth-stuffing, fistfuls of kernel poofs disappearing ever faster. The deeper I delve, the thicker the powder, the denser the crunchberries. The accumulated flavor dissolves into background noise.
It is a jingle bell hum, constant and regrettable. It wins you over without your consent. Your hand keeps stuffing, your mouth keeps chewing, your belly approximates fullness for each of the bag’s 6 “servings,” the 140-calorie increments ho-ho-ho’ing towards disintegration in a blitz of tongue and molars.
I finally realize the designers’ intent: the crunchberries are a brake pedal. A greater concentration would derail this frantic snacking, interrupt the pillowy cushions. It’s casino math, a series of small, unevenly timed payouts that keep you yanking the handle, watching those Christmas lights spin with wide eyes and a full mouth.
As I approach the conclusion, I feel a sense of constriction and ill will. Near the end now, the powder flavors no longer soar, instead simmering dangerously as they melt together in my mouth. Kernels stick. Defective crunchberries, warped and tough, have settled to the bottom. I don’t have the heart to put them out of their misery.
The tone has been set. This is not the sort of year I want to have, but it is happening already.
