I was tootling around a Chinese grocery store the other day and saw packs of fireworks for sale in the middle of the candy display.
A pack of the mighty "HAW FLAKES" fireworks consisted of ten packed cylindrical rolls. LIGHT FUSE GET AWAY! But wait a minnit...
What's a firework doing with an ingredient list? And what the hell was a "HAW", anyway? Haw haw haw! Well, since the whole ten-pack cost thirty-nine cents, I figured what the hey.
When I got to work, I opened up one of the packages. This is what was inside.
There were about 27 discs inside. But look at that color! There was no way I was going to eat these babies until I figured out what "haw" meant - I didn't want to find out it was Chinese for "pig innards" after knocking down a pack.
Luckily there were a few mentions of Haw Flakes on "the internet" - "Haw" is short for "Hawthorne", the flower. Hey, lookit me, I'm eating a flower! Actually, it's the fruit. The taste was described as "fruit leather" (or, Fruit Roll-Ups), and is pretty accurate. You only want to eat one disc at a time, it's the perfect serving size - more than one and you lose the stellar chew profile.
The aftertaste, however, needs a little work. I would not take these on a roadtrip, for example. When eating Haw Flakes, make sure you're within reach of a toothbrush. It's not a particularly bad aftertaste, it just feels a little grating, like cornbread, for example.
Let's take a look at that ingredient list again.
1) Haw Flakes are Y2K compatible!
2) What you don't see are the other two
ingredients that are listed on the pack - water, and FD&C Red 40 (no, that's
not the unsafe one, no one can use it anymore). So this means that the
completely unappetizing color is the RESULT? I'd hate to see what it looked
like before...