Please, don’t go nuts on World Nutella Day

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/02/2018 (3083 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

 

I don’t want to create widespread panic, but I strongly suggest everyone within the sound of my voice spend all day today hiding in their basement, possibly wearing a tin-foil hat.

I am recommending these security measures because, along with being the 36th day of the year, today, Feb. 5 also happens to be (cue eerie music) World Nutella Day.

Is that terrifying, or what?

Q: Nutella? Are you talking about that delicious chocolate hazelnut spread that was created by the Ferrero family in Italy back in the 1940s?

A: Yes. Today, about 365,000 tonnes of the gooey stuff (about 11 million jars) are consumed around the world every year.

Q: OK, so why should we be terrified by World Nutella Day?

A: I’ll get to that in a minute, but first some history…

I personally have a longstanding relationship with Nutella in the sense that, when my kids were young, it was one of the few foods they would willingly eat. For them, it was kind of like chocolate-flavoured crack cocaine in a jar.

My wife would buy industrial-sized tubs of the stuff at Costco, and if the kids were reluctant to eat something — broccoli would be an excellent example — my wife and I could just slather it with a liberal coating of Nutella and the kids would hoover it down like boa constrictors inhaling small jungle creatures.

So, yes, we were terrible parents, but, in hindsight, I am guessing it was not as nutritionally horrible as some of the iridescent cereals (Frankenberry and Count Chocula) that kids of my era sucked back while watching Saturday morning cartoons.

Like I may have mentioned earlier, today is World Nutella Day, the day on which millions of people around the world (some of whom still have their own teeth) celebrate all things Nutella.

Food blogger Sara Rosso bravely launched this day in 2007 after moving to Italy, where she fell deeply in love with the chocolate hazelnut paste created by Italy’s Ferrero family after the Second World War.

Baffled that its gooey goodness was not a global phenomenon, Rosso invited her buddy blogger, Shelley Ruelle, to help her launch a special day in a bid to introduce Nutella to the rest of the world.

“Nutella Day was immediately popular and we had a lot of interest from bloggers to participate,” Rosso wrote on her blog, called WhenIHaveTime.com. 

“Dozens of food and Italy bloggers sent us their Nutella Day recipes and other contributions like songs, poems, videos, and other odes to Nutella, and we posted recaps of the event linking back to their contributions shortly after Nutella Day.

“Along the way, World Nutella Day became a true holiday, and not ‘owned’ by anyone. People became exposed to it who had no idea who Michelle or I were. People made it their own. It wasn’t our holiday any more. It was great.”

I know what you are thinking. You are thinking: “Gee, Doug, if World Nutella Day is so (bad word) great, then why do we need to spend the day hiding in our basements?

Well, I would be happy to tell you. The ugly truth is, there is a dark side to Nutella.

People who crave this super-sweet spread will do almost anything to get their hands on it.

You probably think I am joking here in a light-hearted manner. Well, let me just say this: you are an idiot! What you need to know is (and this is the absolute truth) a French grocery chain, Intermarche, saw brawls and riots in its stores when it deeply discounted the price of Nutella.

Q: You’re kidding, right?

A: I do not think CNN jokes about things like this, Mr. Trump.

Seriously, police were called in as Nutella-craving customers threw punches, pulled hair and pushed the elderly out of the way as swarms of addicts battled to get their hands on France’s favourite chocolate spread.

That day, it was on sale for about 70 per cent off.

“They are like animals. One woman had her hair pulled. An elderly lady took a box on her head. Another had a bloody hand,” one shaken customer told the media.

In one Intermarché in the Moselle region of eastern France, a staff member reported: “People were piling in, they knocked everything over and broke stuff. It was an orgy… we were on the point of calling the police.”

In another store, staff said they had sold in one go the number of Nutella jars normally sold in three months. “They were fighting over it… at the tills there was only Nutella,” one told Le Progrèsnewspaper.

Q: This happened in France, right?

A: Oui.

Q: This is the same country that idolized Jerry Lewis?

A: Yes, I suppose that explains a lot.

You are probably thinking that Nutella-induced violence could never spread to North America, right? Well, again, let me say, from the bottom of my heart, you are an idiot.

According to CNN, in September 2015, a 78-year-old shopper in California said he was punched in the face after complaining that another customer took too many Nutella waffle samples. (For the record, there is no such thing as “too many” Nutella waffles.)

At risk of sounding alarmist, I think the smart way to celebrate World Nutella Day would be to hide in the basement with your head tucked between your legs until the nearest government official knocks on the door to sound the all-clear.

On the other hand, you could ignore this warning and, with no regard for personal safety, head to your nearest supermarket and try to obtain a jar of you know what. But that would be nutty.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca