Literally translated from Dutch as 'hail battle', it actually means chocolate sprinkles (or 'jimmies' if you like)!
Dutchies eat way too much bread each day than should be possible (breakfast + lunch + snacks); Holland, which has roughly 17 million inhabitants, has 2.100.879 chocolate sprinkles sandwiches being eaten per DAY. Some other interesting facts based on the Albert Heijn hagelslag are:
-it used to be called 'chocoladestrooisel' or 'hagelkorrels',
-the first hagelslag color was not brown, but rather white.
Not only does the world love it, almost as much as the stroopwafels, but also do all sugar-lusting children love to put chocolate bars on their healthy, brown bread. And that's where our story begins.
(Chocolate) sprinkles come in tens of hundreds of different variants, most often known to be used for decoration. The most popular are the cheapest ones of course: milk chocolate, dark, and mixed (white and normal choco). Now at my home, we rarely were allowed much of these sorts of sweet toppings. Only when requested, or when my mother was gone, we had chocolate sprinkles. This past week, my mother left for Norway, and everyone knows that dad is not as used to grocery shopping as mom. So when dad goes shopping five minutes before closing time, the more appealing products are chosen, rather than the cheap, as for mom when she does the regular shopping. So, my dad came home that evening with the store's brand, hagelslag, with bits of white chocolate in the shape of gables, called 'Zaanse Huisjes'. The store, Albert Heijn, is a nationally known grocery store comparable with Lidl or Aldi's, and they are celebrating their 125 years of existance. With that, comes an interesting little history lesson about the origins of their Hagelslag etc. and so on and so on... see picture below!
- You pour it out of a little cardboard slot, cut into the side of the box so that you pull the slot towards you in order to pour. Those delicious chocolate pieces (that appear not only in that brand) are all shaped the same size and get stuck/in the way of the sprinkles, while you're pouring (hence the reason for the shape). This cause (especially) kids to want to pour more sprinkles out in order to get those special pieces.
- Putting the bits in with limited quantities will often cause jealousy amongst siblings or friends who didn't get one on their sandwich, but do want it. Jealousy causes the friend for example to also want that one next time they go shopping with mom.
- It's a fact that people will consume more sprinkles when they have special chocolates in them, that's why those brands are more expensive and are gone in no time.
- A smaller sized box, with the opening slot about one fourth off of the top so that the box only needs to be filled just over half with sprinkles (less production needed)
- As with cereal, it is a way of making kids want their parents to get some product more than the other; simply because of the prize/toy/any special item that it would give them. This causes parents to want to please their kids and not go for what is most healthy (often not those with prizes).
This was John's pop-up thought for today, thanks for reading!