Well, no! We don't call it"Japanese rice cracker"!

Sembei - What the hell do you call em in English ?! Why not call em what YOU call em ! The Japanese people I ask you !?

A rice flour based biscuit, dipped in soy, sesame or seaweed - a fluffy on the inside, hard on the outside crunchy treat - not a thing I would whinily nomenclature in an American whiny accent as "A Japanese Rice Cracker". Imagine I would name Lasagne as an "Italian Sloppy Cheese-Meat-Béchamel Bake" every time I wanted to say Lasagne and you get my frustration...

In Japan people love to grin with an air of self knowing, assured English fluency straight out of their high school text books when they offer you a sembei biscuit smiling "Have a Japanese Rice Cracker" when the word "Japanese Rice Cracker" feels completely alien to me as would "Salted Sausage of Italian Origin" in the case of Salami.

When people say "Japanese Rice cracker" I have visions of some kind of rice based firework, bite into it and it explodes in your face...

Burritos are burritos
Chowmein is chowmein
Borsch is borsch
Lasagne is lasagne
Haggis is haggis

But regrettably Sembei seem to be (cue Americanized nasal text book accent) "Japanese Rice Crackers"...

I wouldn't be so enraged if they weren't so damned tasty, and the word "Japanese rice crackers" took so long as to say rather than "sembei"...

Anyhow, someone from work brought some really tasty "East Asian Rice Flour Baked Soy Dipped Crisp Biscuit Configurations" back from Akita this week and they had a cute design on the package.

I nearly lost it back there on the whole naming thing. When I get fluent I will type it up and get a van driving round announcing this rather than gripe here.