Snacking at Disneyland

When I start going through the individual lands, I will point out restaurants that we particularly like or don't like. What I am focusing on now is the snack carts and stands that you can find anywhere, and some of the treats that end up recurring.

In our family the joke is always about frozen bananas. This is because Maria is obsessed with them. Julie and I don't get it. I like bananas, and I like chocolate, but the process of freezing them, in my opinion, makes them too difficult to eat. Maria disagrees. She always says she will have one every day we are there, and it doesn't really end up being quite that often, but she'll have at least two or three.

You will know the frozen treat carts because they will have little representations on the sign. So there will be a replica of a frozen banana, cookie sandwich, Mickey ice cream bar, and so on. The cookie sandwich is good, but very caloric. The frozen lemonade was again one that I found difficult to eat, though tasty. However, I think our individual stances on frozen bananas show that tastes vary, and the wide selection means that there should be something for everyone.For example, my sisters would never do what I did, and get the turkey leg, but I did!

I first heard of this from a friend who would have them at county fairs. I think I was already aware of deep-fried Twinkies and Oreos, so a deep-fried turkey leg didn't seem so strange, considering, and plunging only legs, instead of entire turkeys, into vats of boiling oil seemed safer. It occurred to me, though, that it could be difficult to eat, with all those slivers of bone that a turkey leg has.

I nearly tried it on our last trip - the first time we had seen it there - but it seemed a little expensive. Well, having now tried it, I have to admit that you are getting a lot of meat. This one should probably not be viewed as a snack so much as a meal.

It is actually quite difficult to eat. A plate and a fork would have helped a lot, but you are apparently just supposed to bite into it, caveman style. I was picking bits off with my fingers, which occasionally burned and was pretty greasy. The turkey leg is not for the delicate or faint of heart, but it is pretty tasty.

Turkey legs are frequently sold with other fried treats, including a cob of corn on a stick. That seemed like a weird thing to get, but we saw people with them.

The other thing that I was always tempted by, but held back on, was the giant pickle. I used to see them at a stand with kind of a farmer's market feel over by It's a Bug's Land. At the time, I had discovered a love for dill pickle spears, which I think is closely related to my love of salt. Just looking at the size, though, it seemed awfully messy.

Currently they have these stands in multiple locations, and these are kind of your healthy snack stands. They have fruit cups, and hummus cups with pretzel chips, and they have the big pickles, though I feel like they were bigger before. Anyway, I tried it and found it refreshing, and not as messy as it could have been.

Mickey pretzels are available in different places, but we tend to get them at the Bengal Barbecue, so it feels more like a restaurant food for us. My sisters love pretzels anyway, so putting one in the shape of Mickey's head that you eat while at Disneyland only makes it better.

There are restaurants and stores that have some strong similarities. I would say that getting a sundae at Gibson Girl Ice Cream Parlor on Main Street in Disneyland is not terribly different from getting one at Clarabelle's Hand Scooped Ice Cream on Buena Vista Street in California Adventure. A lot of that is atmosphere.

So, when I want to watch them making candy apples and dipping pretzel sticks and marshmallows, I like to do that in Critter Country, even though that is not the only place I can do it. And when the time comes to buy Minnie's Bakery Blue Ribbon Chocolate Chip Cookie, which must happen at least once on every trip since having discovered them the first time, because those are some really amazing cookies, I tend to do that on Main Street. That is also where I finally succumbed to the sucker bundle.

You know, you only live once, but I will get to Disneyland again.