This connection to childhood is a key part of their attractiveness. Culturally, we consume snacks differently than we do meals. You might try a new cuisine to be adventurous or try a new buzzy restaurant to expand your palate, but your snacking habits tend to be private, and revolve around what’s familiar and brings you comfort. Because of this, our favorite snacks are often tied to nostalgic flavors from childhood. Some memories around snacking are so ritualized that they’re inextricable from our strongest national symbols, like chips and dip during the Super Bowl, or chocolate on Valentine’s Day. The rise in Asian snacks — and the broadening of what we consider to be snack foods in America — signals some change in how we consider our role and history in this country, which has always been fraught with tensions about otherness, newness, and assimilation. Its popularity, and the sense that this is not a trend, is just another sign that we’ve been here, and we’re here to stay.