They're ubiquitous around here. And they're like nutella with delicious hazelnut in it, heebie you goddamn barbarian.
I have personally delivered enormous boxes of Ferrero Rocher to relatives in the Philippines and Korea.* They kind of taste like rice krispie treats filled with nutella.
*I don't think of F.R. as having a special status in this regard; my family also used to take See's Candies boxes and Costco (at the time, Price Club) cases of Hershey's Bars. On the other hand, I've probably eaten more F.R.s sitting in relatives' living rooms overseas than I ever have in the States.
I would walk across the street and buy some right now if I weren't so lazy.
My in-laws have a box around at every holiday and have for as long as I can remember. I didn't know it had anything to do with immigrants. I thought it was an Italian-American (but very assimilated Italian-American) thing.
I received a box this year for Christmas from an immigrant-to-the-US client, so, yes.
I don't think they're actually bad, it's more that the packaging writes a check of fancyness that the taste can't cash. Kind of like, I dunno, Hennessey.
Obligatory link for the dated reference to a Ferrero Rocher ad at the end.
What is best in life?
To bite open a Ferrero Rocher just perfectly so that it splits exactly in half, to eat the hazelnut first, then the cream filling, and then finish with the crunchy cover.
I thought Ferrero Rocher was Marshall Field's store brand because I never saw them for sale anyplace else.
They are everywhere here. Maybe only seasonally. It would feel wrong to buy even a small box and eat it myself, even if it cost the same as a Kit Kat.
I like them too, but I never knew they had any particular significance.
One of my cousins was in Walter Reed for a while and Ferrero Rocher was always a hit on his "deck" or floor.
Now that I think about it, the vast majority of Ferrero Rocher I've received has been from South Asian immigrants/contract workers.
Then again, my Scots-Irish father's side of the family loves to give Whitman's or equivalent chocolate samplers, so at least chocolates for hospitality is not uncommon among those without any recent immigrant background. But Ferrero Rocher wins on consistency.
9: They're pretty cheap. Which relieved me, since they look like they shouldn't be.
I guess South Asian people are pissed at me.
7 is indeed great. I surely wasn't aware of any particular cachet among immigrants, but a few Ferrero Rocher chocolates in everyone's Christmas stocking was a staple for my mom (along with the obligatory orange, a new toothbrush, a pair of jazzy fuzzy socks, and odds and ends).
Seriously, why aren't South Asian people giving me stuff? I see them all the time.
South Asian people sometimes gave me burfi on Diwali or Eid. Which kicks the living shit out of Ferroro.
Shortage of burfi is one of the ways this country sucks. They're like 100 South Asians in the whole country.
At least you don't need to feel bad that they give everybody but you candy.
Maybe they think you're racist? Being from the Midwest and all.
It also helps being a school librarian. My mom gets like a box worth every year.
She's definitely racist though. But not in an aggressive way.
22: Not all of them could know where I'm from.
That's how a day's drive ends up taking 40 years.
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17: Doing better in the last 3 days - swelling reducing, flexibility returning - it's just slow, but as predicted for a Grade II calf strain. I'm being much more aggressive in treatment (ice packs, compression, elevation). Dr's appointment early next week, so hey, so far so good.
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I seem to recall you were urgently enjoined to seek more timely appointments.
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If you strain a Grade V red calf, you can rededicate the Temple, thus starting the Apocalypse and preventing Trump 2020.
Meanwhile, I'm trying to remember where the tradition of an orange for Christmas comes from. I can google!
My guess: It comes from people who sell oranges.
100 There's hundreds of thousands of South Asians in this country but I've never been given burfi as a gift. Fuckers.
By the later Tang era, whole regions of Fujian specialized in the export of oranges and candied orange peel. Don't you feel better for knowing that?
34: In the extremely late Tang era, they powdered the oranges and added artificial flavors.
Maybe you're shitty librarian. Do you have story hours?
Ok, I'm going with this explanation:
2. A treat during the Great Depression.
During the Great Depression of the 1930s, money was tight, and many families simply didn't have the means to buy gifts. Instead, it was such a treat, even a luxury, to find things like a sweet orange or some walnuts in your stocking on Christmas.
My mom was born during the Depression. Quite a bit of her behavior/tradition came from that.
OT: Is there some reason I'm getting gay-themed ads suggesting I take a vacation in Tel Aviv?
36: If so, it has been maintained with remarkable consistency by a wide variety of Sinologists.
41: I'm thinking you're in the best position to answer that question.
I haven't looked at anything different from usual on the internets today.
Nowhere was specialization more extreme than in Fujian, which grew numerous products for sale in other Chinese provinces but also devoted considerable acreage to the production of lychees and oranges for foreign export.So much so that
there were four prefectures in thirteenth-century Fukien in which fish-pools, orange-growing, and the cultivation of rice for the manufacture of wine were forbidden in order to increase the supply of foodgrains.
When Buffalo fans shouted "the Juice is loose," they were engaging in cultural appropriation.
40: ISTR oranges appearing in Christmas stories (though not actual stockings) in my household, which was culturally British.
41. Whoops, I logged into fb as myself when I was looking around on your computer. Sorry!
44: Markets are only truly efficient in the long run, so you can't expect your demands to be supplied automatically.
47: My immediate family maintains that tradition, with a mandarin orange in the toe of everyone's Christmas stocking. It goes back to my mother's childhood (1940s) at least.
In the long run, everybody gets pictures of fit guys in speedos suggesting a trip to Tel Aviv.
41: Are you using a laptop you also use at home?
54: Oh, hrm. My hypothesis is, taking at face value you haven't done any surfing saying you're looking for a gay vacation somewhere warm, that your laptop, via cookies, was geotagged as being in a Jewish neighborhood, and it's beneficial to someone to promote the perception of openness in Israeli to American Jews of all sexualities. I guess if you're using the same Google/Facebook accounts, it doesn't really matter if you're on a different machine. Then again, I haven't seen these ads yet.
I guess I wasn't even aware Israel had a beach scene.
Huh, never heard of these, at all. I guess it's a Family Circus thing. I thought it was going to about another academic like Jordan Anderson (was that his name?). This is the senile uncle of comments.
Ferrero Rocher would make a good porn name.
Ah-hah! Someone who visited us from a foreign land recently gave us a box (tray?) of those as a house gift. I had never seen or heard of them before.
"Unfogged: eventually you learn everything here."
60-61: Jordan Peterson would also work as a porn name.
The story was interesting and kind of wacky about cultural associations. I knew the candy, but it was just this slightly gaudy thing for me, no particular symbolic weight.
Maybe I don't get candy from South Asians because when my neighbor was giving away "No matter where you're from, you're welcome here" signs I didn't take one. I just didn't want the Russians to think I'd turned friendly on them.
Having googled burfi, I would much prefer that. It sounds delicious:
The name is a derivative of the Persian word barf, which means snow.
I know them as... one of the chocolates that is for sale at every grocery store and drugstore. It's like there is a secret society of millions of people who drink Snapple at special occasions instead of wine.
Very interesting article!
I didn't know about the immigrant cachet until reading the article either, but can confirm the bit about the TV ad. People were making "Ambassador, with zees x you are spoiling us" jokes for years.
I mean, maybe it's just because they're a quintessential airport chocolate, along with Toblerone and Guylian.
I actually think they're gross. My mom never let us have candy when we were little, but once when I was super sick she bought me some F.R. to tempt me to eat. I immediately threw up and now, thirty years later, the smell of F.R. or Nutella still makes me gag.
I love FR, because hazelnuts are delicious.
Ferrero Rocher were also ubiquitous as gifts in Narnia. Yes if my relatives went to California they'd bring back See's, but you could buy Ferrero Rocher anywhere, which is not true for See's. For that reason Ferrero Rocher is also more recognized as a 'fancy' gift chocolate because most people don't have relatives who go to California regularly.
If I ever go to Asia, I'm buying square watermelons for gifts. Unless they cost too much.
I've never associated these with anything special, and am pretty sure my family having them as snacks was the direct result of them showing up at Costco. I also don't associate them with Nutella, which I barely ever see or eat. Yes there's corporate and ingredient connections, but I don't think of them together.
what ponder says. there's always ads near muslim holidays with ferrero rocher towers, like croquembouche. no one would ever make one, but it's just to highlight the inherently fancy nature of the chocolate. they are hella good and girl x ate a three-pack just yesterday.
I think I've seen ads like that too. Not with Muslim holidays though.
They tend to pop up as Christmas gifts here anyway but when I think about it I have received them from Chinese clients in particular. I don't like them myself so I try to re-gift them. (Visions of box of of FR as an eternally circulating mathom.)
The other thing I get given a lot is bottles of Baileys - I like it ok but my consumption levels don't keep pace with what I receive.
Many years ago a friend had a theory that you could keep drinking Baileys without getting drunk. I can report that this is not true, you get drunk with added sugar high. No idea what the crash the next day was like.
So I bought a box of FR because why not.
I guess I should share with my colleagues, but that's a long time away.
81: We would have Baileys every Christmas. I would rather have just whiskey, but I think the family finds that unseemly for a holiday.
My family traditionally makes pitchers of Manhattans at holidays. Whiskey makes the sniping more energetic and entertaining.
I don't think we've ever made drinks in a pitcher.
My mother-in-law makes piña coladas on New Years Eve, and she's also a big fan of Christmas Baileys. She's basically a winter-holidays-only drinker.
I have an aunt (by marriage) who started me drinking Manhattans. I don't agree with her on much (for example, we once had an unfruitful conversation about whether or not the CIA invented AIDS), but she was right about the Manhattans.
I don't think I've had a frozen drink in my life.
85 - martinis, but otherwise we could be related
The only martini I ever had was ordered at the Olive Garden. I should probably give them another chance.
I thought we'd established that I was basically your New York liberal aunt, right?
Yes. I honestly think you should meet her, but I don't know how to arrange that without embarrassing, you, her, or myself.
Probably can't be done. I'll just enjoy feeling knowing that I have a doppleganger out there someplace.
There's a 50% chance you're the evil twin.
That would explain this goatee.
Growing up with Asian immigrants in the family, I didn't realize that Ferrero Rocher wasn't an Asian brand until I was an adult. Ferrero Rocher and Guylian chocolates were mandatory gifts at all holidays and formal occasions.
Among my people in Chicagoland, it's Fannie May chocolates or nothing.
My mom makes delicious chocolate chip cookies with rice krispies in them.
That's not something I ever heard of before.
Among my people in Chicagoland, it's Fannie May chocolates or nothing.
But it should be the Frango chocolates from Marshall Field!
99: My dad's boss had those in his office. We always got one when we visited.
102: Those are good, but I've only ever had one box.
Ha. If you google "freddie mac chocolates," the first result is Fannie May Chocolates.
I was just listening to a podcast where the hosts made an "Ambassador you are spoiling us" joke. 25 years later.
If only Clinton had passed out candy.
Those Ferrero Rochers bought much goodwill among my non-racist colleagues.