A trending rice cracker from Japan - you may have seen this before!

I was just scrolling through Instagram and saw a video of a press and a raw shrimp, and pressed down poured with flour. 

The video spanned 39.7 million and millions of likes. 

Japanese Senbei

The comments on this video jokingly said a lot of things including, 'Turned Bro into a trading card', 'Open an Etsy, frame it, ship it!', and even 'Shrimp.zip'. 

Check it out below!

Although its funny, there's also a long history behind this cracker and how it shaped Japanese snacks forever. 

In the video, it shows a chef pouring a doughy-like liquid onto the press, and a raw long shrimp gets in the middle, the chef presses it down, and spins the contraption to tighten the dough. When it comes out, the cracker with the pressed cooked shrimp appears. They would then cut out the creases to create a long square and serves it with a napkin. 

To hold onto a big shrimp cracker and can be enjoyed while walking on the streets of Japan. 

But this tradition goes back long ways since this has happened. 

According to Emirido website, it said that it had originated in China and introduced to Japan in BC and the Japanese decided to create their own approach with it. 

Originally, the rice flour gets mixed with water and then baking it through. As you saw in the video, the tradition modernized into using a press maker, frying it, and having different seasoning and putting seafood (like whole shrimp, or octopus). 

It keeps talking about the different periods on the website. The first thing it mentioned was the the Sengoku Period (era 1467-1615) people in the military's force were eating Senbei as a rationing emergency food for the war. They state that it has high nutritional value and content, used to fuel Japanese soldiers at the time. 

Sengoku Period

From the Edo period (1603-1868) developing different Senbei foods, like adding variety of new flavours, shapes, and sizes, and the Meiji period where technology was developed, which meant more varieties passed down to the consumer.

Since then, varieties of rice crackers had advanced technologies from around East Asia. And yes, including the Shrimp pressed rice crackers serving in Japanese stalls. 

Try it out for yourself and let me know in the comments if you ever tried Japanese Senbei!

Japanese Senbei