Today I thought I would try a post on the more “culinary” side of Karate.
Because, as we all know, the way to mastering Karate lies in the heart. And the fastest way to a man’s heart? Through his stomach!
Therefore, I give you…
“Tabekko Karate Biscuits”!
The only biscuit you need with your coffee if you want to become a World Karate Champion.
Just look:
These are not fake!
Real Karate cookies. I bought them in Okinawa, at the “Okinawa Traditional Karatedo Kobudo World Tournament 2009″. But for some reason they have remained uneaten!
That has to change!
So, to make it easy for you, I am going to eat them and give you a review!
And what better way to eat them than after a hard Friday evening Karate session together with your fellow Karateka? Today’s cold, windy, autumn afternoon proved to be the perfect opportunity. So I gathered my brave taste testers (what, you thought I was going to eat them alone?) anxious to get a bite of the JKF Karate Biscuits.
Let’s get this party started!
We started by examining the box. On the front we had various animals in Karate gi (blue elephant, red monkey, orange tiger, green gorilla and a white rabbit). They were screaming stuff like “Ei!” “Yah!” and “Tou!” which hopefully are kiai, and not poisoned-karate-biscuit-stomach-ache-screams.
Here’s a picture:
On the front you could also see a big JKF (Japan Karate Federation) logo which proves that these are the real deal – official Japanese Karate cookies! With extra calcium too!
We also got some details on the biscuits themselves. It seems they have Karate techniques printed on them! Wow! More exactly, 64 cookies have kata moves on them, 17 cookies have kumite moves on them, and 44 cookies have Karate words (terminology) on them.
125 unique cookies in total!
Whoah!
We couldn’t wait to try them out!
But first the rest of the box had to be inspected…
Here’s one side:
Basically, this side gave you some info on Karate and the WKF (World Karate Federation). At the top we had a super-short history of Karate. Then we had some manufacturer info below, and then a continuation of a list of the member countries of WKF.
At the other side, the member countries list started:
And finally, we had the back of the package. Here we had illustrations of the kata moves that we hopefully would see on the cookies when we opened the box (the test group were starting to drool here):
The kata are the 8 official Shiteigata of the WKF (Seipai, Saifa, Jion, Kanku Dai, Seienchin, Bassai Dai, Seishan and Chinto), along with the 8 new, secondary, Shiteigata (Kururunfa, Seisan, Kanku Sho, Empi, Matsumura Rohai, Nipaipo, Niseishi and Kushanku) that only Japan uses.
Apparently, there is some kind of game going on here. The instructions on the box are not that clear, but I think you are supposed to grab a random biscuit, and then do the kata that corresponds to the number on the box, or something like that…
Too bad nobody in the test group recognizes half of the kata!
Oh! I almost forgot!
We also had the top of the box left:
Here we had the kumite moves! Or like the text says: “KUMITE Cooool Selection of 17 DifferentTechniques” (spelled exactly like that, see for yourself!). A quick glance shows we were about to eat techniques like Chudan Mae-geri, Jodan Gyaku-zuki, Kizami-zuki, Ashi-barai and even a Counter Chudan-zuki.
Yummy!
“Enough! What are we waiting for!?” somebody suddenly screamed, and before I had time to put my camera down and do a swift bodyguard ninja-roll to save the cookies, the whole box had been viciously ripped to pieces, with “Tabekko Karate Biscuits” lying all over the place (okay, I admit, slight exaggeration).
“Noooo! I was trying to examine the box for my website!” I tried telling them, but they wouldn’t listen. They were like kids in a candy store! It’s hard to find good taste testers nowadays…
Here’s the inside of the (empty) box by the way:
A really cool Karate quiz!
Clever!
Now…
Let’s finally have a look at what you really want to see.
Meet the “Tabekko Karate Biscuits”.
Not exactly chocolate chip, but they still look tasty!
Here’s a close up:
As you can see from these random biscuits I managed to steal back from the taste testers (savages!), we have cookies like “uppercut punch” (age-zuki), kata Kururunfa, “spear hand” (nukite) and kata Saifa here.
But how did they taste?
Well…
Let’s see what the testers had to say!
I’ll let them speak for themselves: (click picture for full size)
As you can see, they were satisfied with the cookies. Salty, yet sweet.
And cool.
Eating them was actually… fun!
The final verdict?
4 out of 5
The only “negative” comment has to be that they contain pork (says so at the bottom of the box)! Seems a bit strange for some simple bisquits…
Anyway, a great snack for Karate people!
Oishii! (“delicious” in Japanese)
And that’s it for today!
Next time I’m going to get my hands on some of that Kobudo sake…
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