O-tsumami

A colleague was asking what those snacks served in JAL flights were called, each bite of a different Japanese flavor, some even wrapped in dried seaweed. I remember they were called o-tsumami, at least that was what was written in hiragana on the packaging. We liked them so much we would sometimes hoard one or two packets in our bags for future munching or even as o-miyage to friends. The flight attendants were none the wiser… lol.

I was curious what the name o-tsumami meant so I took the time to look it up in the Japanese dictionary I have on my PC. Curious, it means simply “snack” in English. So, it’s a generic name for munchies and somehow we’ve ended up translating it as that mixed Japanese snack. There goes one other useless piece of information to tuck somewhere in my brain.