Frito-Lay makes corn chips with shaketoba fish flavor just for Japan’s far north【Taste test】

What if you took a Dorito, ditched the cheese, and added salmon? You’d get Frito-Lay Japan’s shaketoba chips.

For foreign snack companies looking to offer something special for the Japanese market, a tried-and-true strategy is to take their existing knowhow and add a dash of a distinctly Japanese flavor. For sweets, some of the most common choices are introducing matcha or sakura flavors, while wasabi or teriyaki are options for savory treats.

But the Japanese division of Frito-Lay skipped all of those when creating our latest convenience store snack discovery, as the makers of Doritos have adapted their corn chip recipe to bring you the flavor of…fish?!?

Let’s start at the beginning, though. We came across these chips on a recent trip to Sapporo, the capital city of Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost prefecture. Among the things Hokkaido is famous for are its chilly winters, its delicious seafood, and its local Seicomart convenience store chain.

All three of those things come together in Frito-Lay’s Shaketoba Corn Chips. Shake means “salmon” in Japanese, and toba translates to “winter leaves.” Put them together as shaketoba, and you’ve got the name of a kind of salmon jerky made in Hokkaido with fish caught in the fall which were hung outdoors in strips (looking like leaves) to dry so that people of generations past would have food to get through the harsh winter months.

In the modern day, shaketoba sustenance isn’t a survival necessity, but it remains a popular snack among locals and souvenir for visitors, which brings us back around to Frito-Lay’s Shaketoba Corn Chips, which are a Seicomart exclusive item. Since we always have room in our stomachs for new snacks, we picked up a bag, and then we opened it up.

Dried fish can be pretty pungent, and since these chips are made with powdered Hokkaido salmon extract, we braced ourselves for an aggressive aroma as we peered inside. To our pleasant surprise, though, neither the smell nor the flavor is harsh. Texture-wise, they’re very similar to Doritos, with the same light crispiness and appealing toasted corn base flavor, but without the cheese element. The fish notes are actually pretty understated, but there’s a light salmon sensation present, though those who haven’t looked at the bag might not immediately recognize just what kind of seafood taste is present. Overall, they were excellent and addictive, and once we introduced a little mayonnaise as a dipping sauce, we felt like we could happily eat a whole bag in one sitting.

So while “fish-flavored corn chips” might sound like a divisive, or even deranged, snack choice, it turns out Frito-Lay’s Shaketoba Corn Chips have a flavor that we think just about anyone could enjoy. And while we think just about anyone could also enjoy a trip to Hokkaido, if your near-future travel plans don’t include a run up to the north of Japan, they’re also available through Seicomart’s online shop here.

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