Banana Chips Chocolate

Brand: Jun Chocolate

Cost: 108 yen

Found at: Daiso

Shonen Knife is a Japanese all-girl punk band formed in 1981 that sings about food. It’s not the only thing they sing about, but it is a major feature in their discography with such hits as “I Wanna Eat Cookies” and “Ramen Rock.” From the moment I heard them featured on NPR during the horrible commuting days of my past, I connected to the punky, pop-y sound and the simple, positive lyrics. Not only did the style resonate with the grunge music of my own Pacific Northwest upbringing, but the words spoke to my own love of food. I could understand how, embarrassed to sing about romantic love, this band chose instead to sing about something just as profound: eating.

I tired once to explain this band to a friend of mine – a girl band uncomfortable with love songs writing songs about snacks instead – and he shook his head in disgust. To him, it was some commentary about female timidity, and he waxed on at length about female empowerment, having completely missed the point. I cannot blame it on his gender, as he is not so much a misogynist as an idiot, but I felt that he had missed out on an essential element of the female experience. I am hungry. In fact, I am hungry all the time. And all the time and all the time I am told not to snack – to resist that hunger, or even to foster it. But there is such unmitigated joy, for me, in food – a joy captured by Shonen Knife in such lyrics as:

“Banana Chips, Banana Chips,

Banana Chips, Banana Chips,

Banana Chips, Banana Chips, Banana Chips.

Oh, yeah! Banana chips for me!”

That’s how I felt when I opened this bag and the delightful smell of banana poured out. These are genuinely delicious. The premise is simple: freeze dry a banana and cover it in chocolate. You literally cannot go wrong. And they literally did not go wrong. Mind you, these chips are suspiciously more banana-y than your typical Trader-Joe’s organic, gluten free, non-gmo, Osha approved banana chips, but for $1, they are perfect. I’m also in need of both potassium and chocolate at the moment, so this totally counts as nutritional self-care.

And it makes me happy to eat them – and goodness knows that there is not enough celebration in the joyful experiences of women. So, sing your banana chips, eat your banana chips, and be the punk-rock heroine of your own meal.

As God as my witness, I will never go hungry again.