Ode to the Snacket

A survivor of the Old Internet

Note - I originally published this a week ago when the Snacket launched… on the wrong Substack. Oops! I didn’t notice because my READING DEPRIVATION/INTERNET HIATUS has been going EXTREMELY well and I never came back to check the stats or the comments. This version is gently updated and the link at the bottom will take you to Snacket Week 2.

I don’t follow basketball. I can barely remember that sports bracket is March Madness is basketball, happens in March.

But I do like a little snack.

So I was pleased this morning a week ago to open my email and see Snacket 12 in my inbox. It’s a little yearly ritual I’ve participated in since about 2018. It’s a bracket - of snacks. It’d be overkill to say I was overjoyed. Even pleased is pushing it. I felt… at peace. The year has once again turned over and the Snacket is back.

And best of all, The Snacket feels like a vestige of the Old Internet, played only for the love of the game.

Every year, sometimes twice a year, the Snack Czar selects 60 diversified nibbles from around the world, slots them into themed pairings, pulls representative photos of each dish, creates a glossary, and, in one of the most Old Internet moves of all, showcases a lot of very enthusiastic, over-the-top user-submitted comments waxing poetic and duking it out.

It’s completely anonymous - at least, I have no idea who the Snack Czar is and I don’t care to find out. It’s free to play. There is no advertising. It’s run in a Google Form and you don’t even have to sign in to fill it out. I believe there are at least thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of players.

At some point they upgraded from a barebones plain text email notification system to a template that looks like it was made by a church secretary. There are different colors and even a button in it. The Snacket graphics themselves still look like they were made in MS Paint…. Powerpoint at best.

There are no interim emails, no side hustle promotions, just the business of the Snacket and then silence until it comes around again.

This year, we’re playing the “Kitchen Edition” Snacket. No prepackaged, processed foods here - everything takes at least a little bit of work in the kitchen.

And isn’t spending time in the kitchen a balm for the soul in these troubled times?

Sure, I can go to Jewel and go absolutely ham on bioengineered corn starch sticks covered in “cheese” flavored powder and scientifically engineered to provide maximum flavor with minimum satiety so I eat an entire $8 bag in one sitting and feel absolutely disgusting for the next day and a half.¹

This was an absolutely unfair pairing, as the Snacket is wont to do. Shocking myself, I voted Scotcharoo. May others see my folly and raise Lemon Bars to victory. UPDATE 3/15 - they absolutely did, Hallelujah, Lemon Bars are through to the next round and you better believe I voted for them.

Or I could spend an hour making Scotcharoos. I could get frustrated at the sticky peanut butter, and how it’s hard to spread the Rice Krispies, and the chocolate that doesn’t melt quite right so I have to start over, and then it doesn’t flow smoothly and the spatula leaves tracks in the surface and it looks so homemade. And I’d have spent a beautiful hour changing the world, shaping its surface to my desires, following along in good orderly direction to an end goal. No, they’re still not healthy… but cooking is good for the soul.

Okay. That’s enough of that.

I’m putting my money on 7 Layer Dip to take it all.

Fight me in the comments.

1. Lest you think me all high and mighty, I did just that this past weekend. I don’t exactly plan on doing it again anytime soon, but I do not speak of that which I do not know.