On a recent visit to the USA, I frantically stuffed my suitcase with French delicacies in the hope of consoling Paris-raised offspring struggling to adapt to the horrors of American cuisine.
Confit de canard, foie gras, green lentils of Puy, French wine, fresh macaroons, fancy boxed chocolate, real Dijon mustard and, as a wink at the fleeting joys childhood, that ultimate delight : Nutella.
But, oh, while the rest of my offerings were greeted with the kind of enthusiasm Moses must have reserved for bread and water after a harsh forty days--my Nutella was scoffed at!
Turns out it's not considered exotic at all in the USA! You can buy it at your local supermarket!
Not only that but it's so American that it just got sued!
Why would anyone sue the makers of Nutella?
Because, as a stunned American mother discovered, it's not really a health food.
Athena Hohenberg, the mother of a preschooler in San Diego, California, launched the class action lawsuit early last year, saying that the sweet spread kids adore had been pitched as something "healthier than it actually is."
She was "shocked to learn that Nutella was in fact, not 'healthy, nutritious' food, but instead was the next best thing to a candy bar, and that Nutella contains dangerous level of saturated fat," her lawsuit said.
As a result, the makers of Nutella are setting aside $3 million to settle claims from injured families, not to exceed $20 per claimant.
In a country where industrial food lobbies managed to get pizza declared a vegetable and pink slime included in school lunches, this defeat comes as a terrible shock. What's next? Soda? Energy drinks? Fried butter? (see How Washington Went Soft on Childhood Obesity) In your dreams!
No, Nutella is, after all, foreign, and clearly under-staffed in the lobby muscle department.
Still, I thought, if French women have a reputation for not getting fat, what about their kids? French kids eat Nutella with a delight bordering on frenzy. How are they doing?
And then I learned the awful truth.
Nutella is not French!
It's Italian! Ferrero created it!
Italian, as in pasta, pizza (a vegetable) and XXL opera singers!
And this, for me, was the biggest shock of all...
