It’s been a long time since our last installment of !Lunes Sabroso!, so I knew that we had to go big. Larger than life. Sure, energy drinks and Bubu Lubu may be interesting, but they’re not exactly risky. Mainly because marshmallow is delicious. No one on Earth would argue with that. So, on the last trip to the market, we walked each isle slowly, trying to find exactly the right Mexican food item to tantalize you with. And we found it. Meet Rojitos.

What are Rojitos, you ask? Oh, you mean, you can’t tell from the above photo? Allow me to educate you. Rojitos are “Chabacano con limon y chile,” and they promise “Una Experiencia de Sabor.” And I have to confess, that these descriptions are, indeed, facts. These ARE dried apricots, floating in a bright red chili and lime fluid of unknown origin, as bright as a watermelon Jolly Rancher. And they did, indeed, deliver a flavor experience.

Unlike our other !Lunes Sabroso! subjects, what was most challenging was not the shockingly red appearance, or the surprising lack of odor. The challenge came in figuring out what to DO with them. I mean, who knows what Mexicans do with these? Do they go on ice cream? Get made into muffins? I wouldn’t want to eat them straight if that was not at all the intention. But how would I find the answers?

It was simple. I wouldn’t find the answers. So I cut the top off the bag, and dug in with a fork. At first taste, these weren’t bad, though it would be absolutely impossible for anyone to ever know they were eating dried apricots under blind taste test conditions. And blind taste test conditions are probably commonplace for this particular delicacy. If this were the only complaint, and these still-firm fruits were floating in a delicious sauce, that would have been the end of it. The texture was nice, and they felt good to chew. Who cares if they’re not very apricot-y? Mysterious water-sauce can save anything!

Unfortunately, this mysterious red-dye #40 liquid was also not this snack’s saving grace. The chili/lime flavor tasted of neither chili nor lime. The taste of the pickling liquid can only be described as similar to, I suppose, some type of hospital antiseptic or preservative, like formaldehyde. Could it be that, devoid of any of the natural flavors promised on the package, all we were left with is bright red liquid that tastes like it could have just been used to preserve a flatworm for a high school biology class? Well, eating just one wasn’t going to give me the hard-hitting answers regular DroppedIn readers have to expect. So I braced myself for a second whole apricot.

The situation hadn’t improved. The second taste was worse than the first, and I knew I wasn’t going to explore my thoughts on the subject any further. Rojitos are a bust. It’s a shame…there is an entire half aisle in the supermarket of various delicious fruits dipped in chili and lime, and I was getting particularly excited by the tamarind lollipops, dusted in spicy sugar. But if Rojitos are any indication of what similar items taste like, with their disturbing appearance, and their utter lack of discernible flavor (other than perhaps tasting the way propane smells), I don’t have to try the rest. It is an aisle in the market I can safely skip.