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Ducana is a dessert dish that is popular on the Caribbean islands of Antigua, Montserrat and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The dish is a type of dumpling made with coconut and sweet potatoes, often cooked in banana leaves. It is usually served with stewed or salted fish, and is a common staple food for many locals that enjoy the contrast of sweet and savory flavors.
Some say that the sweet potato is best used in the preparation of ducana, as the islands are brimming with sweet potatoes that were cultivated by the Arawak Indians a long time ago. Ducana can also be consumed cold, or thinly sliced and lightly fried as a snack.
MOST ICONIC Ducana
This unusual American specialty consists of bacon strips that are cooked until barely crispy, dipped in chocolate, then left to cool until the chocolate coating hardens. The earliest mentions of this sweet and savory snack date back to 2005, but it is still unknown who had created it.
Some suggest a state fair in Minnesota, while others claim that it is was invented in Marini's Candy in Santa Cruz, California. The snack gained huge popularity when it was featured on Food Network's show called Dinner: Impossible, and nowadays it can often be found at numerous state fairs throughout the country.
MOST ICONIC Chocolate-Covered Bacon
Charales is a Mexican specialty dish consisting of small, deep-fried, minnow-sized fish consumed with salt, chilis, and a squeeze of lime juice. They are usually served as a snack or as an appetizer, although charales can also be used as a taco filling.
There is also a dried version of charales that is especially popular during Lent, when the fish is cooked with nopales, green salsa, and wild herbs.
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Chocolate covered potato chips is an American invention that is commonly consumed as a dessert snack. Just like the name suggests, these snacks consist of thin potato chips that are simply dipped in melted chocolate. The chocolate may be regular milk chocolate, dark chocolate, or white chocolate, and the chips are typically ridged because they can hold more chocolate than the regular, straight-cut variety.
In the past, these snacks were often called chippers, when they were made by Widman's Candy. In 1985, chocolate covered potato chips gained popularity when they were launched in the market by a Chicagoan company called Executive Sweets.
MOST ICONIC Chocolate Covered Potato Chips
Arañitas are a Puerto Rican specialty consisting of shredded and fried plantains. The name of the dish is derived from the eponymous Spanish word, meaning little spiders, referring to the visual appearance of this crispy dish. It is usually served with dips such as guacamole or a garlic-based dipping sauce on the side.
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A corn dog consists of processed meat on a stick that is dipped in corn meal batter and deep-fried. It is a wildly popular snack (and hot dog variation) throughout the United States of America. Corn dogs are typically found at county fairs, carnivals, sports arenas, food courts in malls, and roadside eateries.
This flavorful snack was first popularized by Neil Fletcher at the Texas State Fair in 1942, although the vendors at the Minnesota State Fair claim that they invented it in 1941 when it was known as a Pronto Pup. Today, corn dogs are often eaten with yellow mustard, pickles, sauerkraut, or mayonnaise, and there are numerous varieties of the snack throughout the world, namely in Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan.
MOST ICONIC Corn Dog
View moreAn iconic staple food of South Carolina, boiled peanuts are a simple snack consisting of raw, semi-mature peanuts in their shells that get boiled in salty water for a long time, with the optional addition of a piquant spice mixture. Peanuts arrived in the South in the 18th century on slave ships, when they were known as ground-nuts, ground peas or goobers.
Numerous theories claim that the practice of boiling peanuts began with Confederate soldiers in the time of the Civil War, when they were hungry because the food was scarce, so they dug up raw peanuts and boiled them. The first recipe was published in 1899 by Almeda Lambert.
MOST ICONIC South Carolina Boiled Peanuts
View morePeanut drops are popular Jamaican snacks made by boiling roasted peanuts and minced ginger in water with brown sugar. The peanuts are boiled until the water evaporates and the sugar becomes sticky like caramel. Peanut drops are left to cool and harden before they are ready to be served and consumed.
These traditional treats are enjoyed both by young and old throughout the island.
Bulla cake has a round and flat shape, and it is made with flour, molasses, and baking powder. It can be either light- or dark-colored and is often spiced with ginger or nutmeg. The cake first appeared in the 19th century and from the 1980s it’s being produced mostly by large bakeries in Jamaica.
This popular treat for schoolchildren is usually eaten with butter, avocado, and cheese.
Achingly sweet, extra hard, dense, and crunchy, benne balls are popular Tobagonian treats made with brown sugar and benne, which is an African word for sesame seeds. These treats are extremely simple to prepare - brown sugar is heated, combined with sesame seeds, and then the concoction is rolled into a ball and left to set.
Benne balls are especially popular at street stalls which are located near the beaches, making these sweets an ideal beach treat – just watch out for your teeth while consuming them!
TasteAtlas food rankings are based on the ratings of the TasteAtlas audience, with a series of mechanisms that recognize real users and that ignore bot, nationalist or local patriotic ratings, and give additional value to the ratings of users that the system recognizes as knowledgeable. For the “30 Worst Rated North American Snacks” list until April 19, 2025, 8,673 ratings were recorded, of which 6,729 were recognized by the system as legitimate. TasteAtlas Rankings should not be seen as the final global conclusion about food. Their purpose is to promote excellent local foods, instill pride in traditional dishes, and arouse curiosity about dishes you haven’t tried.