So this one came about a couple of months ago, at the same Shop-Rite I reference very often on this blog. A bean snack, which was listed as being a "Product of China," but also mentioned as being made for a Bronx, NY company. I tried two kinds--the garlic & onion sort, and the zesty ranch flavor, both from the Bada Bean Bada Boom brand.
Bada Bean Bada Boom (for brevity's sake, from now on I'll mostly abbreviate this as BBBB) is a brand of the Beyond Better Foods LLC company. Which is one of those firms that doesn't include much of anything about its founder(s), general history, etc. I had to cobble these details together from alternate online sources, such as LinkedIn. Anyway, Beyond Better appears to have started in 2012, and currently employs a reported 32 people. The person (or persons) ultimately responsible for the business's existence is a little vague. LinkedIn has a Maria J. Coria as the founder, but other sources note that the owner is a Michael Shoretz. (Perhaps Coria founded it, and later sold controlling interest to Shoretz, or something.) In addition to the BBBB snacks, Beyond Better also had (has?) an ice cream line called Enlightened. As far as I could learn, there are only 6 flavors of the bean snack. Aside from the kinds I tried, there is a sweet sriracha, a sweet onion & mustard, a spicy wasabi, and a sea salt kind. The website is very health-conscious, proudly touting how much more nutritious these bean snacks are versus regular potato chips. Not surprisingly, the website also notes that their wares are vegan-appropriate, kosher, and free of gluten, GMOs, and soy. (Although their factories do process tree nuts and peanuts, so be aware of that if you're intensely allergic to these substances.) Evidently the secret to their bean snacks' relative healthiness is the beans themselves, and because they're roasted in a limited amount of sunflower oil. Also, it should be noted that the beans used in BBBB are broad beans, often known as fava beans. (Yes, yes, like the ones that Hannibal Lecter mentioned.) More on that later. I also was struck by a slightly defensive sounding question on their FAQ section on the official website, "Why is Bada Bean Bada Boom made in China?" Their answer was that the broad beans are best from China, as they are native to there, and that the factories in this nation are confined to the highest safety standards, and ethics.
Bada Bean Bada Boom garlic & onion flavor: The pieces were bean-sized, and bean-shaped, or roughly ovoid, with a brownish-yellow color, and a pebbled texture. They were dry and crunchy, obviously. I could detect the garlic & onion flavor, but it wasn't very strong. Okay, but not great.
Bada Bean Bada Boom zesty ranch flavor: Same size, shape, color, and texture as the previous one. Dry and crunchy, like the previous. Some ranch hints, but again, not a strong flavor. Alright, but not dazzling. I would have much preferred a stronger, more significant flavor. So both of these are clearly more healthy than regular potato chips, but they don't taste better. I don't plan on buying them again.
Two additional points struck me about this snack. As the official website admitted, and other online sources corroborated, there is a medical condition called "favism." Certain people have a genetic disorder, called "G6PD," which is a type of anemia. When these folks eat fava beans the results can be nasty--fatigue, dark urine, shortness of breath, pale skin, lower back pain, rapid heart beat, fever, and diarrhea. And it's not just fava beans either--other things like anti-malarial drugs, certain antibiotics, mothballs (presumably from skin contact, and not eating!), aspirin, and even stress can be triggers. Which must really suck if you're afflicted and need to undergo surgery, or travel to areas where malaria is a danger, or if you get a bacterial infection, or if you're just worried about the possibility of any of these things.
Finally, readers might be curious about the odd name of this snack. Well, Bada Bean Bada Boom is clearly a reference to "Bada Bing Bada Boom." "Sopranos" fans will recall that the first two words of this phrase were the name of Silvio's strip club in the show. And this in turn is probably a reference to a quote from Sonny Corleone (played by James Caan) in the first "Godfather" movie (1972). But, there's more. The first public and notable mentioning of this phrase, as far as I could tell, is from the 1958 Pat Cooper comedy routine, "The Italian Wedding." However, it's evidently a fairly common East Coast Italian-American saying, meaning, "long story short," or "there you go." The derivation of the phrase is vague. Some think it's from the Italian phrase "bada bene," which means, "mark well," (or possibly "mind you," according to translations I could learn online) while others think it's the approximation of the sound of a drum roll and cymbal crash after a joke at a comedy club. So there you are. I love "The Godfather," and "The Sopranos," so I think it's a cool name. But, it's admittedly a rather unwieldy moniker, I will say.
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