"Pardon me, do you have any Nutella?"

Much as I enjoy the smell of hazelnut coffee (we will have a WaWa opening soon, not too far away from us!) and the aroma of fine chocolate, I have never tasted Nutella, which is, from what I gather, sort of like peanut butter in consistency, but tastes of hazelnuts and Hershey Bars.

I'm not only too hidebound to try a new nutspread, I won't even put anything else on my 17-grain toast than Skippy. So Nutella is not even on my shopping list.

But over there in sunny France, where the gourmets gather and whip up fresh batches of après moi le déluge and wash it all down with some homemade mauvais quart d’heure, they just go nuts about Nutella.

So much so, that when French supermarket chain Intermarché put that choco-hazelnutterbutter on sale - from $5.60 to about $1.75 American, French shoppers about went out of their minds.

The cry of "Nutella 70% off!" rang throughout the land where once the people chanted "Honneur, patrie, valeur, discipline!" (French for "honour, fatherland, valor, discipline!")


You might have seen the roiling throngs eddying about the Nutella rack.  The French news, never known for shying away from a chance to amplify a commotion, labeled the disturbances "mutinies." One imagines the croissants in the bakery department, all lining up and hoping to look good and Nutella-worthy. 

Stores reported long lines waiting for the doors to be open at many locations, people pushing each other out of the way in their urgency to play Supermarket Sweep, and, in some cases, people becoming threatening and hostile.

In France, you say.

Here in America, we never stoop to such manic behavior, unless it's Thanksgiving night and Walmart has 105" plasma screens with SurroundSound on sale for $39. Then, we all put our napkins down, pile in the Studebaker, and go down to WallyWorld to join the fray.

It's all in what matters to you!