Jagariko Lesson: Can’t eat enough as a Giraffe

Learn Japanese through Snacking–Clay’s favorite Japanese snack, Jagariko

My favorite Japanese snack is じゃがりこ (the Salad flavor サラダ味あじ). The name comes from a play on the word for potato—ジャガイモ and a person’s name リカコ（利加子りかこ）. The snack contains a cupful of crunchy (and tasty) cylinder shaped potato chips.

As you can see from the picture to the left, the キャラクター (character) responsible for getting millions of children addicted to Jagariko is a giraffe. According to Calbee’s website, a giraffe was chosen because of the snack’s slogan: 「食たべだしたらキリンがない」 which includes a wordplay on the Japanese word for giraffe—キリン.

For me, Jagariko goes unusually well with umeboshi and rice (日ひの丸まる弁当べんとう). Yummm.

Let’s take a look at what the giraffe says:

「食たべだしたらキリンがない」

食たべ eat
出だしたら if you start

食たべだしたら if you start to eat

キリン giraffe
が subject marker
ない negation

Quite naturally this means, “If you start eating (Jagariko), there is no giraffe.”

Because there is a giraffe, we know there is something going on. The phrase should be 切きりがない which means ‘without end’. Just one bite and there is no end!

It’s true, too.