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Japanese-style peanuts

Japanese-style peanuts, also known as Japanese peanuts or cracker nuts (widely known in the Spanish-speaking world as cacahuates Japoneses or maní Japonés), are a type of snack food made from peanuts that are coated in a wheat flour dough and then fried or deep-fried. They come in a variety of different flavours. The Mexican version’s recipe for the extra-crunchy shell has ingredients such as wheat flour, soy sauce, water, sugar, monosodium glutamate, and citric acid. The snacks are sold in sealed bags.This type of snack is claimed to have originated in Mexico in the 1940s by Japanese immigrant Yoshigei Nakatani (father of Mexican singer Yoshio and plastic artist Carlos Nakatani). After losing his job, due to the closing of the factory where he worked making mother-of-pearl buttons, property of the owner of "El Nuevo Japón", Heijiro Kato, who was suspected of being a spy for Imperial Japan, Nakatani had to find ways to take care of his growing family. Working in the La Merced Market corridors selling Mexican candies called muéganos and a new variety of fried snacks he named "oranda", in honor to the Japanese orange-colored fish, Nakatani made a new version of a snack that reminded him of his homeland: mamekashi (seeds covered with a layer of flour with spices), adapting it to Mexican tastes. Nakatani packed the peanuts in bags with a Geisha design, made by his daughter Elvia. While his children tended to the family business, Nakatani and his wife Emma went to sell on nearby streets. The demand for the new snack was such, that they stopped selling at home, and got a stall in the Market. By the 1950's, the family business, "Nipón", had been established with the help of their son Armando, registering the trademark in 1977. Unfortunately, Nakatani never registered the patent for the snack, and, since 1957, brands like Nishikawa, and later on, by the 1980's, Barcel and Sabritas, among others, had made their own versions of Japanese-style peanuts. Nakatani's company Nipón remained as an independent entity, until it was bought by Totis in 2017.