What's everyone's favorite snack? Cakes, cookies, chocolates... Perhaps tastes vary widely. However, in Japan, there's one snack that seems irresistible to many: pudding.

Melting in your mouth, smooth and creamy... Who wouldn't adore such a treat? The Japanese love for pudding could be described as nothing short of fanatic. Some even worry about the consequences if this beloved delicacy were stolen by someone else!

Thus, inventive Japanese netizens came up with the anti-pudding theft device — the Pudding Alarm. How does this alarm work? When you place your pudding on the Pudding Alarm, and if someone attempts to sneak into the fridge to steal it, the alarm will immediately react by announcing, "The pudding has been taken, please return the pudding!"

If someone tries to deceive the Pudding Alarm by replacing the pudding with something else, like almond tofu which resembles pudding, the alarm will shout, "This is not pudding!" If the thief ignores the warning and still tries to steal the pudding, the Pudding Alarm will take a photo to record their wrongdoing and notify the pudding's owner!

<h3>After the invention of the Pudding Alarm, other Japanese netizens also expressed their eager anticipation, saying, "When will they invent tissue/yogurt/cheese stick alarms!"</h3> In addition to the Pudding Alarm, the Japanese also invented a brother version, the "Pudding Rotating Car." As soon as it senses a "pudding thief" reaching for the pudding, it rotates non-stop, leaving no chance for theft!

<h3>The love of pudding extends even into the realm of anime.</h3> In "Gintama," there's Gintoki who indulges in pudding extravagantly; Shin-chan gets super happy when he eats pudding; and there's even a movie related to pudding called "Tsukiji Uogashi Pudding," starring Ryō Nishikido.

The movie combines time travel, comedy, warmth, and food into one, telling the story of Kijima Yasubei, played by Ryō Nishikido, who claims to be a samurai from the Edo period 180 years ago and somehow ends up in modern-day Tokyo. After tasting his first pudding in life and finding it incredibly delicious, he became interested in Western confectionery making.

Eventually, he brings back the technology to his Edo period life and develops "Edo Fulin (pudding)" using soy milk and eggs, opening a pudding shop that has been passed down for centuries.

<h3>However, why does pudding stand out among many delicious snacks and become the favorite snack of the Japanese?</h3> It's because they prefer soft-textured food. The greatest feature of pudding lies in its soft and chewy texture. Japanese people have a special fondness for this soft texture. If we trace back, the Japanese people's preference for such a texture dates back to ancient Japanese dietary customs.

In ancient times, soft and smooth white rice and wagashi (traditional Japanese sweets) were considered high-end foods enjoyed only by the upper class in Japan. These foods held considerable status in the minds of people at that time. It's important to note that Japanese people have struggled with hunger caused by natural disasters for a considerable period in history.

Soft foods are easy for people with weak and nutrient-deprived stomachs to digest and absorb nutrients. Thus, gradually, in Japanese food culture and people's subconsciousness, the impression that "soft = delicious" was formed. There's also a belief that Japanese people mainly use chopsticks as eating utensils.

Foods that could be easily picked up with chopsticks, and cut into small pieces for convenient consumption, naturally gained people's favor as a standard for evaluating cooking skills in ancient Japan. Soft-textured foods that are easy to pick up with chopsticks naturally received people's love.