38 Snacks To Make Your World Go Round

Hello and welcome to this thing we’re doing where we help you figure out what you’re gonna put in your mouth this week. Some of these are recipes we’ve tried, some of these are recipes we’re looking forward to trying, all of them are fucking delicious. Tell us what you want to put in your piehole or suggest your own recipes, and we’ll talk about which things we made, which things we loved, and which things have changed us irreversibly as people. Most recently, we ate marvelous mushrooms.

food3

Yep. You asked for it, Sally, and here it is. International snack foods. Munchies from around the world that you can enjoy with one quick trip to the grocery store and a little action in the kitchen. Oh, what a wonderful world we live in!

A quick note before we start, though. The foods on this list aren’t intended to be singular cultural representations of the places they came from. Many of these recipes are adaptations — and beyond that, I don’t support the weird obsession many people have with “authenticity” in food anyway. If you have other suggestions, though, feel free to share them in the comments!  It’s all good.

Now get your hearts, minds and mouth holes ready for some tasty snacks. We’re doing this, right here, right now. As in, snack snack snack crunch. Snack snack snack munch. Snacks on snacks on snacks. GO.

1. Australian Tim Tams

My girlfriend and I had Tim Tams for breakfast every day last month.

2. American Twinkies

3. Belgian Waffles

Via Food 52.

Via Food 52.

4. Brazilian Cocadas

5. Chinese Char Siu Bao

6. Czech Pierogis

“These are delicious pierogi, and needed no adornment to be perfect and wonderful and exactly what I needed. Also, if you’re worried about them somehow being transformed into health food, you can stop. It’s all white flour and white potatoes up in here. Rejoice!” – Senior Editor Rachel

finished-pierogis

7. Dominican Quipes

8. Ethiopian Dabo Kolo

9. French Gougères

That’s melty cheese in the middle, in case you couldn’t tell.

10. German Laugenbrezel

Laugenbrezel

Via Saveur.

11. Greek Dakos

12. Hawaiian Mini Spam Musubi

Yesssss. Spammity spam, wonderful spam! I highly recommend this.

mini spam musubi

13. Indian Kobbari Chekodi

14. Japanese Pocky

Pocky was my favorite snack food as a teenager, hands down. One year I was Audrey Hepburn’s Holly Golightly for Halloween, and I tried to use Pocky as a cigarette stand-in. It worked okay, except that I kept nibbling at it.

pocky

Via Food 52.

15. Jordanian Labneh With Olive Oil And Za’atar

16. Kenyan Mandazi

17. Luxembourgish Rieslingspaschtéeit

18. Mexican Marranitos and Pan Dulce

You can thank Mey’s mom for these.

Here's a beautiful plate full of Mexican baked goods that we'll be making today!

19. Norwegian Lefse

20. Omani Khabeesa

Wheat pudding with rose water and saffron. I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m very intrigued.

21. Panamanian Patacones

22. Peruvian Turrón De Doña Pepa

23. Puerto Rican Limbel

Basically a coconut icee. Yum.

 24. Qatari Schawarma

25. Quebecois Poutine

26. Russian Pickles

27. Scottish Deep Fried Mars Bars

28. South African Bulkas

Just so you know, this recipe includes photos of Vanessa as an adorable little girl.

Sneak peek.

29. Spanish Chocolate Tostada With Olive Oil And Flaky Sea Salt

30. Taiwanese Mochi

I love mochi so much! Especially with ice cream.

31. Texan Fried Green Tomatoes

Are fried green tomatoes actually Texan? Some would disagree, but that’s the first place I ever had this snack. So here we are.

image3_FGT

32. Trinidadian Kurma

33. United Kingdom Scones

scones

34. Venezuelan Arepas

35. Western Saharan Lamb Stew

Yeahhh, I’m not sure how snack-like lamb stew is, either. Open to suggestions.

36. Xanadu Cookies

There’s no country that begins with X, so please accept these cookies in homage to a place where nobody dared to go.

37. Yemenite Hilbeh

38. Zimbabwean Rusks

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Laura Mandanas

Laura Mandanas is a Filipina American living in Boston. By day, she works as an industrial engineer. By night, she is beautiful and terrible as the morn, treacherous as the seas, stronger than the foundations of the Earth. All shall love her and despair. Follow her: @LauraMWrites.

Laura has written 210 articles for us.

32 Comments

  2. This post should go into a special A+++++ section, because it is clearly worthy of the very toppest of marks.

    This post has so many top marks, they were probably scratched by three bottom posts while this post was topping ALL of them.

    This post is such a big top that we are all in fact living in a circus inside of it.

  3. Also, I must confess that I have never gotten over when Fikri said she did not rate British food.

  5. Tim Tams are Australia’s greatest accomplishment. Not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing..!

  6. Ok, International Snack-lers, help a lady out! If anyone’s got a solid recipe for Singapore-style Bak Kwa (super tasty bbq meat squares) you will make me the happiest person alive. I haven’t really known where to start with the recipes I see online since the last time I tasted the stuff I was 7 years old. :(

  8. What a phenomenal way to travel the world!! Thanks so much for including my Tim Tams recipe. I can’t wait to try out some of those others!! :D

    • I searched long and hard to find an acceptable Tim Tams recipe. Thank *you* for bringing that masterpiece into the world!

  10. Someone come make me snacks, please. Bad idea to read this on my lunch break instead of actually going and getting lunch…

  11. You guys, I miss scones so much. I could make them for myself here, but Spain does not have clotted cream and scones without clotted cream would just make me sad.

    Also: I want those French melty cheese things.

  12. Kinda beyond excited to see deep fried Mars Bars on this list.
    Although I feel like I’m not a true Scot because I’ve still never tried one haha

  13. That would be Syracuse’s Dinosaur BBQ, fox news, but we can’t always be as fair and balanced as you.

    Anyway, this fried green tomato recipe is delicious. At the original location in Syracuse, which my family has frequented since it opened, they’re served on shredded green lettuce with a horseradish ranch and Parmesan cheese. Every other place I’ve tried pales in comparison to these.

    http://magazine.foxnews.com/recipe/cooking-fried-green-tomatoes-dinosaur-bar-b-que-style

    • Wait, I don’t understand! Are you telling me that fried green tomatoes originated in my regional hometown area of Syracuse? Or…?

  14. TWINKIES?! WHYYYYYY???

    I had no idea deep fried mars bars were scottish? A few things I have never heard of, can’t wait to check them out.

  15. Those all look amazing. I think most of us pretended pocky or pretzel sticks were cigarettes at some point as a kid. (Of course, I would always take a conspicuous bite out of mine whenever an adult looked over because I didn’t want them to think I was actually smoking!)
    Btw- the link for the mochi is saying the page is protected.

  16. wow these all look delicious. yummmmmm

    also, “international” lists of things that aren’t just from Europe, Oceania, U.S. + Canada FTW!!! this is great!

  17. Yessssssss. And oh man, limbels/limbers bring me back to my childhood days. We made them at home, and our neighbor actually started a little business selling them from her house because a K-12 school was on our street and ALL the students came over for them, especially during the hotter months.

Comments are closed.