If the word Nutella (a brand of brown, sweetened hazelnut cocoa spread manufactured by the Italian company Ferrero) reasonates with you in the least, and if you have not already done so, then I commend you to consider the deep fried chocoate bar. And, yes, they use Mars or Snickers (the one with peanuts). This rustic treat was unfamiliar to me until today – a brisk and bright Saturday – when we visited Smash-N-Dash food truck in the parking lot of Ace Country & Garden and UPi Energy on County Road 29, Almonte.
Ferrero International SpA is an Italian multinational company with headquarters in Alba. Ferrero is a manufacturer of branded chocolate and confectionery products, and the second biggest chocolate producer and confectionery company in the world. Ferrero SA is a private company owned by the Ferrero family and has been described as “one of the world’s most secretive firms”.
It was founded on 14 May 1946 in Alba, Piedmont, Italy, by Pietro Ferrero, a confectioner and small-time pastry maker who laid the groundwork for Nutella. The company saw a period of tremendous growth and success under Pietro’s son Michele Ferrero, who in turn handed over the daily operations to his sons, Pietro Jr. and Giovanni Ferrero (the founder’s grandsons). Pietro Jr., who oversaw global business, died in April 2011 of a heart attack while cycling in South Africa at the age of 47.
The Ferrero Group worldwide – now headed by executive chairman Giovanni Ferrero – includes 38 trading companies, 18 factories, and approximately 40,000 employees, and produces around 365,000 tonnes of Nutella each year.
It doesn’t require culinary wizardry to estimate that “the main ingredients of Nutella are sugar and palm oil (greater than 50%)”. To this vestigial recipe one need add only bread (or dough) to complete the mystic vision. At this point of perfection deep fried chocolate bars far surpass an unsophisticated limit; instead, the rudimentary production gratifies the most elemental gastronomy. Each bite predicts rolling of the eyes and exhaustion of breath. Its culmination is the theatric rendition of supreme satisfaction.
A deep-fried Mars bar (also known as a battered Mars bar) is a Mars-brand chocolate bar covered in batter then deep fried in oil. The dish originated at a chip shop in Scotland as a novelty item. Since various mass media began reporting on the practice in the mid-1990s – often as a critical commentary on how unhealthy the Scottish diet was – the popularity of the dish has spread.
It stings me to see the Scottish diet reproached. As a graduate of St. Andrew’s College and a former Regimental Sergeant Major of its Highland Cadet Corps I can attest to having enjoyed haggis often and unabashedly. I will however consent to the acknowledgement of its profound and rich delectation. Indeed its pleasure openly approaches the superlative delight of almost anything which by some account is bad for us. Perhaps I have overcome my erstwhile hesitancy with advanced age; that is, I am beyond “saving it for the funeral”. But the greater philosophic reflection is now upon the duty to linger howsoever consummately upon the currency of one’s acquaintance. We know not how often or for how long we shall tread upon this flowery path. At age 75 I have the undisguised privilege to forego caution or necessity. I mean, why not, what are the chances? It is a privilege I fully intend to emancipate.
Haggis is a savoury pudding containing sheep’s pluck (heart, liver, and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and cooked while traditionally encased in the animal’s stomach though now an artificial casing is often used instead. According to the 2001 English edition of the Larousse Gastronomique: “Although its description is not immediately appealing, haggis has an excellent nutty texture and delicious savoury flavour”.
It is believed that food similar to haggis—perishable offal quickly cooked inside an animal’s stomach, all conveniently available after a hunt—was eaten from ancient times.
Although the name “hagws” or “hagese” was first recorded in England c. 1430, the dish is considered traditionally of Scottish origin. It is even the national dish as a result of Scots poet Robert Burns’ poem “Address to a Haggis” of 1786. Haggis is traditionally served with “neeps and tatties”, boiled and mashed separately, and a dram (a glass of Scotch whisky) especially as the main course of a Burns supper.
My introduction to the term “offal” was many years ago from Dr. Douglas Peterson.
Offal, also called variety meats, pluck or organ meats, is the internal organs of a butchered animal. The word does not refer to a particular list of edible organs, and these lists of organs vary with culture and region, but usually exclude skeletal muscle.
Some cultures strongly consider offal consumption to be taboo, while others use it as part of their everyday food or, in many instances, as delicacies. Certain offal dishes—including foie gras and pâté—are often regarded as gourmet food in the culinary arts. Others remain part of traditional regional cuisine and are consumed especially during holidays; some examples are sweetbread, Jewish chopped liver, Scottish haggis, U.S. chitterlings, and Mexican menudo.
The word shares its etymology with several Germanic words: West Frisian ôffal, German Abfall (Offall in some Western German dialects and Luxembourgish), afval in Dutch and Afrikaans, avfall in Norwegian and Swedish, and affald in Danish. These Germanic words all mean “garbage/rubbish” or “waste” or—literally—”off-fall”, referring to that which has fallen off during butchering.
Dr. Peterson was a man who at the time I considered agèd. He was about 50. I was about 27. We met one evening in a combined state of inebriation at the piano lounge of the Lord Elgin hotel where I had tinkered on the grand to muted applause. I subsequently discovered that he had dined with my mother at the home of Dr. Edward Leroux (my parents’ neighbour) when my father was away on business or perhaps checking his property in New Brunswick. In any event Douglas Peterson was by my immature calculation a man devoted to Hedonism. He drank; he smoked; he dined; he partied and he travelled. While his lifestyle was not lavish, neither was it meagre. He dressed well; he drove a passably respectable automobile; and he knew how to entertain (his flatware and wine glasses were admirable). It was through him I subsequently met Louis de la Chesnaye Audette, QC OC who gave escalated meaning to indulgence and bravado. Louis, as I later learned, was an acquaintance of Mr. Henry Davis, the father of Martha whom I had dated on occasion while attending Glendon Hall in Toronto including by coincidence the St. Andrew’s College Highland Cadet Ball following which we celebrated the traditional “breakfast party” upon the estate of the late Sir William Mulock, grandfather of our colleague Bill Mulock, in nearby Newmarket, Ontario.
Laurier appointed Mulock as Postmaster General. He inherited an inefficient bureaucracy that was losing almost a million dollars a year, but he believed that improved service and lower prices would increase revenue and better connect Canada and the British Empire. He campaigned for lower rates throughout the Empire, and when met by resistance decided to go it alone, announcing that at the end of 1897 Canada would unilaterally lower the letter rate to Britain from five to three cents. In response, a conference of all British Empire postal authorities was called for the summer of 1898. Over the objections of the Australian colonies and New Zealand, Mulock succeeded in implementing an Imperial Penny Post. Mulock also took advantage of this meeting to negotiate the final financial agreement for the transpacific cable first proposed by Sir Sandford Fleming to link Canada to Australia and New Zealand. The cable was completed on October 31, 1902, finishing the All Red Line. By 1903, the Post Office was generating a surplus of almost a million dollars a year.
While most certainly I won’t attribute this fortuity of ambling connections to deep fried chocolate bars, it is by whatever interpretation suggestive of a thread. It is a curious evolution which unites gastronomy, poetry, society, history and philosophy. I am persuaded in this conviction by having only yesterday read an account by a colleague of mine from boarding school 58 years ago who told me he recalled at about age 3½ years having seen the turret of Doc Johnston’s house on Bridge Street, Carleton Place where 46 years ago I dined with Mrs. Annie Johnston whose estate I later settled and whose house was sold by my real estate friend, James R. MacGregor. Go figure.
Address to a Haggis
Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin’-race!
Aboon them a’ ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o’ a grace
As lang’s my arm.