A couple weeks ago I was commenting back and forth with one of my favorite bloggers all the way over there in Canada, Dandelion B. The subject was about the different food items in our countries. It started with Kinder eggs.
I remember the first time I ever had a Kinder egg. I was about 20 years old and it was in Italy. My husband bought me one when I got excited about the cute little prizes that were in them. After that first egg I was hooked.
That very first Kinder egg became an addition to me. I kept going back to the little co op market to buy more, just to collect the prizes inside. I was no longer eating the chocolate, just couldn’t eat all that chocolate.
So I passed the chocolate on to anyone in the family that wanted it. That person turned out to be my husband’s 90 year old Nonna. She would gather up all my Kinder egg chocolate scraps, then add a piece of bread, and that would become her dinner.
No one seemed to be surprised by it. You wonder how people live to be 100, well there you go…they eat, do and live each day doing the things that make them happy. That’s the secret I guess. Eating chocolate for dinner worked for my husband’s Nonna.
I remember us all sitting at the table getting ready to eat a big plate of home made tortellini and there was Nonna with a big smile on her face looking over her family while she savored every tiny little broken piece of those chocolate Kinder eggs.
I on the other hand savored those little prizes.
My mother-in-law gave me a prize she had when she noticed my obsession with them . She had the little prizes tucked away in a drawer for years. Inside that little yellow egg container was a tiny baby set, complete with a little bottle.
I couldn’t believe the detail in these tiny dolls with their little bottle that fit into their mouths….amazing. The toys here in America we were getting out of Cracker Jacks were nice enough but they never had detail like these Kinder eggs.
Cracker jacks here in our country are boxes of caramel popcorn with peanuts. Inside each box is a little packaged paper filled with a prize. When I was a kid I remember the boxes being filled with more peanuts and the prizes were of better quality then.
Now the prizes are apps you download from a smart phone. Children who are too poor to have a phone just can’t participate I guess. Gone are the days of little charms to add to a bracelet or the pinball games and temporary tattoos that I remember from my childhood. Those toy prizes encouraged us all to connect and share with one another. The little pin ball games were fun to play with other kids.
One year up north, I came across a tiny bag of vintage Cracker Jack prizes for .25 cents at a second hand shop. Someone up there held on to them for many years. I believe they came from the Old Hoagland country store when it was up and running. Now it’s a museum. It was fun showing my children what prizes looked like years ago before they were born.
They don’t add prizes like these anymore to Cracker Jack boxes. Now you scan a slip of paper and download an app to play a baseball game. If you still have some of the really old prizes from days gone by they can run up to $7,000. Two complete sets of Cracker Jack baseball cards are worth 125,000 dollars.This is what I read online, which is hard to believe. Who are these people paying so much money for old prizes. The little plastic charms and pinball machines I remember will only get you a few dollars here and there.
We had our Cracker Jacks here in America and everyone else had those really cool Kinder eggs. I always liked the detail in the prizes from Kinder eggs. We would pass the prizes around to each other, sit them on our desk, or on top of computers.
One time I got a Daffy Duck character holding a little movie camera and I gave it to my husband. He used to be an editor and was always working on sets for television and short films. My husband still has that little prize from years ago, minus the feet.
He says he has no idea where the feet ended up in all the years he has kept it. Now he keeps it in a little plant of his. He pokes it down into the dirt so you don’t really notice Daffy is missing feet. When ever my husband waters his houseplant a little puddle forms at the base of Daffy. He has nicked named his little prize “ The Andersen Cooper”.
One year, when we were visiting family in Italy around Easter, I bought two giant Kinder eggs. They were HUGE. I still have them. One for each of my kids. I think it is nice keeping some toys from the past to pass on to our kids once they grow up. Kind of like a time capsule of their childhoods.
So you can imagine the happiness I felt when I finally started seeing Kinder eggs showing up here in the states. Then I opened it up and I got another surprised. These weren’t the European eggs I loved…oh well. The prizes are still nice.
So here they are, our American Kinder eggs. In America you can find foods with just about any ingredient you can think of that is harmful for us. We are led to believe that in tiny amounts it is okay. But those European Kinder eggs are just too dangerous to allow into our country I guess.
The eggs we get do not come with a little plastic container to store your prizes in. No, we just get more packaged plastic to throw away and pollute the planet with. Sometimes the egg packaging becomes part of the prize but it is so flimsy that you know it won’t last long like those little dolls in a container my mother-in-law gave me from years ago.
I think the saddest part of this story is the fact that we are not even allowed the chocolate eggs here . We get two little crunchy ball looking things in a chocolate sauce of sorts. You dip a tiny plastic spoon into the chocolate sauce to eat from. It taste like a little mini Ferrero Rocher dipped in Nutella and a white chocolate cream. It’s yummy but I still liked those chocolate eggs better. I stay loyal to the things I love.
In Arizona we store chocolate in the fridge so this secret chocolate sauce combination becomes a hard piece of white chocolate. You can’t even use the spoon when that happens. The edible part becomes super hard to remove from the plastic container. After you are done, you end up with a plastic spoon to throw away, just more plastic to toss into our dumps. At least with the European editions you can keep the egg containers for years if you like. Although it was cute to see my husband get all excited over the little spoon “Hey, this is a Gelatol spoon” he said and started explaining to the kids how delicious Italian ice cream is.
I don’t buy American Kinder eggs anymore. After the disappointment of having the real deal years ago I just am not interested in them now.The candy taste good but what doesn’t taste good that is a sweet treat that comes packaged. Who knows what artificial things are being done to trick our brains and tongues into wanting more and more. Sugar is very addictive.
I love prizes and the combination of a sweet treat with a prize is something I believe all kids enjoy. So every year for Halloween, I create my own little Kinder treats, minus the chocolate. I make ghost suckers and have a huge basket of used prizes to give out along with the lolly pops.
I make sure to clean and disinfect the second hand prizes I find out in the world. Just trying to do my part in not supplying more waste to our already crowded planet. I try as much as possible to use things that are already here.
Prizes are all over this state, at yard sales, thrift shops, and swap meets. They range in prices of .10 cents to .25 cents each. I don’t pay anything over .15 to keep cost down. Last year I had about 80 children show up at different times, dressed mostly as super heroes and Disney princesses.
The first 50 kids get a prize and the rest end up with chocolate treats of some sort. I usually buy a bag of chocolate for those kids who show up late. The late trick or treaters are mostly tweens and teens. Or they are a few kids left over from the little church down our street that does a Trunk or treat event every year. My daughter has volunteered at some of their events.Yeah, even the ones that are late end up getting something.
This year I found some really nice prizes to give out. Like a little bird that chirps, key-chains, and some happy meal toys still in their packages. The kids love searching through my basket of treats. After they get tired of playing with them hopefully they will pass them onto someone else.
What are your favorite candy treats you remember from your childhood? Happy trick or treating everyone.
For some more ideas for Halloween candy treats, check out
If I were a kid again and lived in their area I would make sure to stop by for some treats at their homes.
I used to like all kinds of candies. One that comes to mind are the wax lips and wax mustaches. There’s a candy store in Jim Thorpe that sells a lot of vintage candies that you can’t find anywhere else. I love to stop in there over Christmas and pick a few favorites.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I remember wax lips. I also remember candy cigarettes. We also had little bags of gold bubble gum here in Arizona. So fun stopping in old candy store going back to childhood memories. We fill our Christmas stockings with sweet treats too.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I didn’t like the Kinder Egg chocolate, but I would convince my mum to buy one, strughle eating one half, while offering mum the other. I did not like white chocolate, so that was why I did not like the chocolate. I only wanted the toys.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The white chocolate is a little too sweet at times, it doesn’t mix well. I am with you on that. After awhile the eggs start tasting weird with that combination.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes I agree, too sweet and sickly and I liked sweet stuff as a kid. But couldn’t stand the eggs.
LikeLiked by 1 person
so cool, i learned something today, as i have never heard of Kinder Eggs. growing up, we never really had candy except for around the holidays so when Halloween hit, I was in kid heaven!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Candy treats were given to us during holidays as well, although sometimes my dad would sneak in some treats now and then. I remember ever year my sister and I would get our very own bags of chocolate candy kisses. A whole bag to ourselves…we loved that.
LikeLiked by 1 person
🙂 i do remember my mom buying candy kisses around Christmas………it was such a huge treat!
LikeLiked by 1 person
My friend in High school would hand them out to everyone for Valentines day. First she would ask “Do you want a kiss?” mostly to boys she thought were cute and when they would answer yes she would hand them a chocolate kiss. She did that every year.
LikeLiked by 1 person
🙂 I bet she got a lot of boys hopes up! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yeah, she loved doing that. She did it with teachers too. She loved her pranks.
LikeLike
🙂 i bet she was fun to be around. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
She had a lot of fire in her that’s for sure. She would ride her bike to the market all the way into her 80’s. I could never communicate with her because she only spoke Italian but there was someone always around who could be the interpreter.
LikeLiked by 1 person
🙂 what a great story and the beautiful memories she has given you!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you Wendi, yes I have some beautiful memories to hold onto and keep me happy.
LikeLiked by 1 person
🙂
LikeLike
Whoops, wrong post. I thought you were writing about my husband’s Nonna…too funny. Yes, my high school friend was and still is fun to be around. I have known her since we were in 5th grade together. We are very different though. She is an extrovert and I am a introvert. I don’t like to party, I am happy at home. Boring for some but I am a homebody after all.
LikeLiked by 1 person
🙂 I was wondering why there would be such a huge age difference between the two of you 🙂
Sounds like you and I are a lot alike. I much prefer to be at home too…….
LikeLiked by 1 person
So funny, sometimes I will reply to the wrong post.
LikeLiked by 1 person
🙂 glad it not just me!
LikeLike
My nana lived to be 91 she lived with diabetes and ate bon bons everyday..and real sugar in her tea..who were we to tell her otherwise. The women gave birth to my dad at 48, became and stayed a widow when she was barley into her 50s
Those kinder eggs are the oddest thing i have ever seen! Lol
Even though i love the original i too caj only eat so many. At the dollar tree the other day they had expired (june) kinder eggs for 25cents. I was tempted to buy for just the toys lol…but they were at cash off to the side I saw them as I had paid.
I love cracker jacks! I hate that they took the toys away! And cereal too!
We had the best childhoods!
LikeLiked by 1 person
We did have the best childhoods, these poor kids now don’t know what they are missing. I would have grabbed a bunch of those Kinder eggs for the prizes. I am still a kid at heart and .25 cents is cheap. We pay $1.25 each egg here in the states. So funny about your nana, it is stress that gets our health in a mess, so just be happy and do they things you love.
LikeLike
They are anywhere from.$1 to 1.50 here…we sometimes buy a case of them at costoco haha.
LikeLike
They don’t sell them at our Costco. I have seen some on sale after certain holidays like Easter but I have so much stuff as it is I have to be careful with adding more clutter to my life. I would probably have a whole room filled with prizes if I were rich. I hope we get enough trick or treaters this year for all the prizes I ended up getting, otherwise I will have to donate them to my daughter’s school where she works,
LikeLike
Oh and also a shop just opened up here and they have all kinds of usa chocolate bars like mr goodbar. Whatcha ma callit charleston chew payday 5th avenue 100 grand just to name a few (i think they are all american? Lol) we cant wait to surprise the kids with them for xmas (most if not all habe never heard or had any of these)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yep, we have all these candy bars here. How fun, we have old fashioned candy stores up in Prescott. I am doing some post next week that are pre-scheduled and they are all on Ghost stories and old buildings in small towns around Arizona. For a Halloween week of posts. There is also a really old country store across from Our Little Red House that still has old candy in it from decades ago. It’s an old museum.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I have 24 pencils and 12 handmade ornaments for non candy eaters and 200 choco bars. Sometimes we go through 200 sometimes not..being a thursday i think we might this year. I cant wait but have my first of 4 iron intravenous treatments the day before..praying I have no side effects. I love seeing all the people. Young and old out in costumes
LikeLike
Me too, I love seeing the costumes people come up with as long as they are not weird and freaky…you know, too gory and scary. I don’t like the scary. The little ones will cry when something is too scary and I don’t blame them. I love how you have non-edible prizes too. One year a neighbor of ours handed out new toothbrushes and toothpaste to go with it…I loved it but my kids didn’t of course but they still said thank you. I thought it was very thoughtful of our neighbor.
LikeLike
It would be stinky if evvveryone handed out non candy..but how much candy does one child need lol…i dont do scary decor or costumes. My family protest this every year but me no care lol
LikeLiked by 1 person
Candy cigarettes are my favorite… It’s funny… They can’t sell them in the stores anymore because they influence children to smoke… I never smoked, not even once…. So, I am not sure about all that… Anyways… I love kinder eggs, the the ones from Europe look so much better than the gooey stuff from here… The toys look better too!! Now… I must say that I AM ADDICTED TO THE KINDER BARS THAT JUST COME OUT!!!! They are amazingly delicious 😋 😋.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I never started up smoking either and also loved the candy cigarettes. Maybe they got rid of them for that reason alone. It actually prevented kids from smoking once they grew up. A real cigarette I am sure taste horrible that first drag someone takes, nothing like those candy cigarettes that’s for sure. Imagine the kids who grew up eating the candy trying real smoking for a change and spitting their cigarettes out in distaste. I am sure the cigarette companies realized that later. I have asthma so smoking would have just hurt my lungs even more. I grew up in a household of smokers though.
I tried the candy bars last Christmas when we bought some for our stockings and you are right they are yummy. They have a light and creamy flavor to them. The toy prizes are better coming out of Europe, I agree with you on that too,
LikeLike