About half of the milk in Japan is produced in the beautiful and vast countryside of Hokkaido, the largest of Japan’s 47 prefectures and northernmost of Japan’s four main islands. As such, cows have become a symbol of the prefecture. Walk into any souvenir shop in the prefecture and you’re bound to find a few locally-produced snacks with bovine-inspired packaging.

On a recent trip to Hokkaido, one of our reporters came across one such snack that was a little less run-of-the-mill than your usual butter cookies: “Cow Poop?” chocolate mochi.

“I had seen Cow Poop? mochi pop up on the internet a few times before but there’s something different about holding a box of it in your own hands,” our reporter writes. How could you not purchase something like this?

So how do they taste? “The chocolate mochi had a mellow sweetness to them. Regardless of how they taste, they certainly make for a good conversation piece.”

I guess you could say the little chocolate mochi resemble cow pies, if not just for being round and brown, but its really the packaging that brings this souvenir together.

My favorite part? The cute little baby cow on the back of the box saying, “eat poop and smile everyday!”

Correspondent: Kuzo


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