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28 November 2011

Try this: Hagelslag – the serious chocolate sprinkles

Hagelslag, according to the Dutch, is the reason bread was invented*. Bread, you see, is the vehicle for conveying hagelslag, chocolate sprinkles for grown-ups (though they do make kid versions).

It's ideal for people who want to relive the youth they never got to experience because their moms were scatterbrained anti-sugar fascists!

[Box of assorted hagelslag. The best is the original one and the pure chocolate one and the golden one.]

Around 1936, some enterprising Dutch man by the name of Gerard de Vries at the Venz chocolate factory decided to revolutionize the consumption of chocolate in the form of sprinkles – which, by the way, can only be called hagelslag if it's 45% chocolate or more, otherwise it's labelled chocolate-flavoured hagelslag.

Butter up your bread (or toast, though it might be frowned upon) and sprinkle hagelslag generously on top and eat with a grin: the butter is the binding agent that unites the world.

[I might go to hell for putting hagelslag on toast but it's totally worth it.]

Take it from the Dutch: chocolate sprinkles are serious business  about 14 million kilos of business annually, on 850 million slices of bread.

* Totally could be made up.

3 comments:

  1. Oooh, it's like upmarket fairy bread! I totally want!

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  2. I bought this stuff in Amsterdam. I have to disagree with your thoughts on it.

    This stuff doesn't hold a candle to Nutella (either the American or Italian versions!) It's sugar-y and plain boring.

    Try to get a 5kg jar of Nutella brought in - such things exist and are heavenly. See: http://www.arugam.info/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/2583724-Mmm-5kg-of-Nutella-0-225x300.jpg

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  3. I have a feeling some hagelslag on the grocery store shelves have lived pass their date of optimal consumption.

    On that note, I've tried some discount Nutella substitute from Italy before and it tastes like plaster of Paris blended with cocoa. Needless to say, it stayed untouched for a long time until I disposed of it.

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