I found out this weekend when I went to Au Marche in Lawrence that the U.S. has declared an embargo on Kinder Surprise Eggs. The FDA has declared them a choking hazards, so the delightful toy-within-a-chocolate-egg treat is off limits to the American consumer unless they have an alternate means of acquiring them.
This is pretty f*&%ing sad. I'm not sure I'll be able to really even celebrate the holidays without those tasty treats and the tiny toys they contain. I'm inclined to agree with the guy at the consumerist who argues that the thrills Kinder Eggs bring to thousands each year are worth a few kinder casualties.
Europe just keeps getting farther and farther away, I guess. The dropping dollar, rising airline prices, and now the kinder egg crisis of '07. At least I've got some Karl Heinz (der Herbstee -- waermt sich von innen auf!) with which to sip down my sorrows.
Oh, and a bit of trivia -- some of you might have wondered during your trips to Germany why "Kinder Ueberraschung" products are still called "Kinder Eggs" and not "Kinder Eier." I wondered the same thing myself once. From what I gathered, it probably has something to do with the German word "Eier" being slang for "balls" or "nuts." So advertising a round chocolate product that translates to "Kiddie balls" or "Child nuts" is understandably worth avoiding.
So as you can see, a seemingly innocent product such as kinder eggs also has a lethal, pornographic underside. But hey -- it could always be worse.
Bonus! A stop-action video of the Kinder Egg experience, thanks to someone in Finland
3 comments:
Shame! I proposed marriage with a kinder egg, figuring chances of rejection would be nill exactly because of these cute little toys. It worked.
The funny thing is, they are in fact not called Kinder as in the German tration to children, the Italian company producing them are called Kinder. There is a Basketballteam in the Italian League called Kinder Bologna (one of th best in Europe) I always thought that was a pretty funny name.
It's a bit late now to send you a supply from here, so you could have made a fresh start as KC's biggest foreign treat dealer.
Moritz
Wow -- good to know. I heard about a Russian market down in the River Market neighborhood of Kansas City that might have a supply, so I'm going to scope that out this weekend. I just wish I would have bought some in Cape Town. They had these fuzzy little gorillas inside, some of them sporting some serious attitude (sunglasses, etc). Viva le Kinder.
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