What is the perfect snack? It is a question I have often asked myself as I lurk, unsatisfied, in the local delis — how to define and discover the ideal snack in its Platonic form, how nigh I might hope to draw to that ideal here on earth. The answer is grail-like in its elusiveness. Which bag, which box holds the nibble that will hit the very spot? Will it manifest itself in garments of paper or plastic? Where, where is my between-meals soul mate? Like a ghost I haunt the aisles, forever in search of the one true…hey, Teddy Grahams!

Okay, okay, I don’t actually skulk around the freezer case like the Ancient Mariner…although now that I think about it, that sounds like fun, in an obnoxious-performance-art kind of way. “‘Twas night, calm night, the moon was high; / The Moon Pies stood together.” Heh. Or maybe a Sophie’s Choice tribute type of thing, with the Cheetos in one hand and the Entenmann’s in the other and lots of dramatic sobbing and package-crinkling…anyway. I take the snack selection process pretty seriously, is what I mean.

Actually, I’ve already identified my perfect snack, the Heathcliff to my stomach’s restless Cathy, the Willie Mays snack that does everything well — provolone and tomato on a roll, nothing else on it, heated for twenty seconds in the microwave. It’s simple. It’s tasty. It’s exactly warm enough and exactly the right size. It’s perfect. So what’s the problem? Well, it’s a long story, but since you asked…

I have three delis in my neighborhood — one across the street, one down the street, and one around the corner — and each deli has different strengths and weaknesses. The one across the street, The Friendly Deli, is the closest, and because I’ve gone in there almost every day for seven years, the staff knows me and how I like my coffee, but everything is overpriced and you’ve never seen more pathetic tomatoes in your life. The All-Night Deli down the street is open twenty-four hours, and the sandwich guy is truly an artist, but it doesn’t carry cigarettes, the “new” cashier is still struggling with the correct-change concept after more than a year, and I always have to wait for my sandwich because there’s always a line of drunk Chipsters waiting for chicken parms ahead of me at the deli counter.

The deli around the corner never has a line at the deli counter. It has a wonderful selection of products from the mundane to the obscure — spicy peas, E-Z Cheez, you name it. The produce is amazingly fresh, the bakery stuff is even fresher, and you can even buy a plant if you like. Or a paper. Or a Duvel. The deli around the corner crafts the best and fastest provolone tomato on a roll no dressing in the area, without question. Alas, the deli around the corner is known in these parts as The Put-Upon Deli, because the employees of said deli tend to view ringing up a purchase, reaching for a pack of American Spirits, combining three whole ingredients into a sandwich and having to wrap it in wax paper, or any other action generally associated with working, in a deli or elsewhere, as akin to dragging a plow by hand through rocky soil. So, when you order a sandwich at The Put-Upon Deli, you don’t just get the sandwich. You get the disbelieving “you actually want a sandwich — in a deli?” stare and the beleaguered sigh, too. The last time I asked for a pickle slice on the side — allegedly complimentary — I caught a whiff of martyrdom ozone.

You can probably see now why, sometimes, it’s not possible for me to achieve snack nirvana, because part of the point of the perfect snack is its effortlessness. Getting a small sandwich shouldn’t feel like visiting a loan officer, but by that same token, the tomato in that small sandwich should not taste like dirt, so, sometimes, I have to go to Plan B, and that’s the problem. It isn’t just finding the perfect snack. It’s coming up with a fallback when the perfect snack isn’t practical. And then the whole store stretches before me, full of snacks, all of them beckoning to me, all of them imperfect. What, then, to eat?

As I’ve just mentioned, anything I have to assemble myself is right out. “Fixing” a snack defeats the purpose — what, it’s broken? No. Snack execution should take exactly two steps: 1. Open. 2. Eat. (Special circumstances may permit the addition of a “1b,” i.e. “1. Open bag of chips. 1b. Open salsa. 2. Eat.”) I don’t want to deal with any stirring or seasoning or testing of the center with a toothpick or any of that nonsense; if I have to set an egg timer, it’s no longer a snack. It’s a troop movement.

Once I’ve ruled out anything homemade and therefore economical and/or nutritionally worthwhile, it’s time to assess the prepackaged options. Candy won’t get it done — I love candy, but it’s not very filling, and I’ll eat way too much and get all spazzy and phlegmy for twenty minutes before the sugar crash hits. And can I just ask what ever happened to regular Skittles? I don’t want X-Treeeeeem Rock-‘Em-Sock-‘Em Moonblast Tropical Mint Wasabi Marinara Skittles On Snowboards, Woooooo! I just want plain old ordinary Skittles. Doesn’t anyone sell those anymore?

I never get ice cream either, for the same basic reason. I have very simple ice-cream tastes, and everything in the ice cream case is so complex these days. It’s like choosing a wine. And God forbid your ice cream have just the one flavor, or any inorganic ingredient that may have touched a machine or a Republican during production. I just want a brick of the old-school mint chocolate chip ice cream with the mental-institution food coloring, or maybe a pint of coffee ice cream. No bits of Heath bar, no chunks of papaya, no splinters of wood from the Titanic. Coffee, milk, ice, guar gum, polysorbate 80, done, thank you, goodbye.

After fifteen minutes head-down in the freezer, searching for an extra-carcinogenic pink Chief Crunchie (no go) or an ice-cream sandwich with all the fat still intact (ditto), I usually give up on the ice cream idea in favor of a starchy snack — but in which starchy direction should I go, sweet or salty?

It’s tough to go wrong in the sweet-starchy department…unless you get the box of Nilla Wafers the owner has rotated to the front once a week since the late seventies, but to tell you the truth, I find a fresh Nilla Wafer a little disconcerting anyway. My family kept a single box of Nilla Wafers going for about eight years, and I didn’t know Nillae shouldn’t crack your fillings until, like, last year. Ginger snaps? Tempting, but the ginger snap is a Catch-22 cookie; it sticks in my teeth, I go to get a drink, and then I realize as I stand in front of the fridge that any beverage I select is going to clash horribly with the flavor of the ginger snap a la orange juice and toothpaste — except water, which does nothing to dislodge the dough from my molars, and milk, which I hate. No animal crackers, either — let’s just say an ex-boyfriend took the anthropomorphizing too far and leave it at that.

The Stella D’Oro line of budget treats is quite reliable. Nothing beats an eeeeever-so-slightly stale Stella D’Oro margherite cookie dipped in coffee with milk, but it’s a fine line between “eeeeever-so-slightly stale” and “wow, that’s…a mothball” with the Stellas. I like the mini Milanos in theory; in practice, I refuse to pay more for “aw, so teeny!” than for the mama Milanos. Nutter Butters work; the Nutter Butter is both sweet and kind of salty.

Maybe I want a cakier sweet snack. Oh, man. I haven’t had a Hostess Fruit Pie in ages. Or a Newton! I practically lived on Newtons as a kid. But what I’d really like is an apple Newton, and they’ve only got the fig ones. I don’t want a donut; it’s too late in the day. I don’t want a Twinkie; it’s too light.

Salty, then. I can’t get anything in the cheese puff/curl family, because I can and will eat the entire bag, see the orange dye under my fingernails hours later, and frighten myself deeply. Ooh, the Funyons shipment arrived. Funyons and a Coke sounds good, but Funyons and a Coke is a very specific snack for a very specific mood, namely “exhausted, bored, and punchy,” so I’ll save those for another time. I wouldn’t mind a nice crunchy Frito, either, but with no seven-layer dip to send it into, it wouldn’t feel right. Pretzels? Eh. Too dry. Doritos? Eh. Too much powdery stuff. Not in the mood for chips and salsa, Dipsy Doodles make me too thirsty, BBQ chips work better with a sandwich than solo, gah! I would kill for dill-pickle dip right now, dill-pickle dip and a big bag of plain Ruffles — why can’t the U.S. get on that already?

Okay. Focusing. Cheese and crackers? Hey, now that’s…oh. The cracker shelf is down to saltines. No, not quite what I had in mind. Wait, what’s this?

[choir of angels bursts into song]

Well, hello, Wheat Thins!

I always forget about Wheat Thins. Not reduced fat Wheat Thins, and not flavored Wheat Thins — original wheaty salty delicious crunchy Wheat Thins. I can eat them one at a time, or I can stuff seventeen of them into my mouth at once. I can enjoy them on their own, or with a sandwich, or soup; they go with a Diet Coke, and they go with a martini. It’s starchy, and it’s salty, and it has a soupçon of sweet at the end! It’s not the perfect snack — but it beats a rice cake topped with Sour Patch Kids!

Thank you, Wheat Thins. Thank you.

August 25, 2003

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