Made in America

Where else!?

If you've wandered down to the bottom right of my blog lately you may have noticed that I am currently nose-deep in Bill Bryson's Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States.  This little beauty is a bit of a drip-feed of a treat.  It's easy to jump in and out of and every time I do I learn something new and interesting.  So, what I thought would be cool is if I added a little tit-bit of something I learnt at the end of each of my daily posts.  That way, you guys can learn something new every day too.

To start things off, one of my favourite topics: chocolate.

Has the idea of chocolate-covered ants or chicken and chocolate sauce ever put you off the good stuff? Well, in the early days of chocolate bars, when they were first unleashed on the nation in the 1920s, they couldn't wait to cover things with chocolate.  One such candy bar was the Vegetable Sandwich, which, as you may have guessed was made of chocolate covered vegetables.  It's biggest selling point? 'The solemn assurance that 'it will not constipate'.  It contained cabbage, celery, peppers and tomatoes.  YUM!

Another such treat was the Chicken Dinner candy bar, "so-called because it was supposed to engender the feeling of well-being provided by a steaming roast chicken dinner.  Though few people were able to make the leap of imagination necessary to equate a chocolate peanut roll with a well-balanced meal, the Chicken Dinner sold well and survived well into the 1960s."

Are there any strange and wonderful chocolate related goodies where you're from? Would love to hear about them!

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