Snack Chat: Common Knowledge

On joining the frozen grapes club

I was not versed in American snacking customs as a child. It was high school when I learned that people freeze their candy bars on purpose and college when I learned that dipping pizza crust into ranch dressing is a thing. Maybe neither of these customs mean anything to you either — but there was always something that dropped the jaw of my companions, mortifying me and making me wonder if I really had been living under a rock. Consider Thin Mints in the freezer, or the mere existence of peanut butter and marshmallow Fluff sandwiches.

I was curious and covetous for snacks of American suburbia. Snacks — Doritos, Fruit Roll Ups, Gushers, Warheads, and so on — were after all one of the few kid currencies that we had, aside from POGS, which I did not have either. I have had a handful of spiritual experiences in my life, and among them was buying myself a bag of Cooler Ranch Doritos with my own hard-earned cash, searing my tongue with each chip’s sodium fluorescence.