Feines Kleingeback Hazelnut Slice

Brand: Alpen Fest

Cost: £1.50

Found at: Lidl

If Nutella on toast dressed up to go to a cocktail party, this is what it would look like. It’s got a fancy German name, gold-colored packaging, and a jaunty parallelogram shape, but I know a classic, hometown snack when I taste one. It reminds me of my cousin, now an Opera singer in Hagen. She goes by the stage name, Elisabeth, has long flowing blonde hair and wears elegant and stylish outfits as she bikes through the tree-lined lanes of an old-world city. She is living the classic, ex-pat existence – and has even developed a trace of a German accent! But I know her as Betsey, and in my mind, I will always think of her as the small girl sitting next to me in a mud puddle, trying to beat the Illinois heat. It does not make her any less elegant, now – just as the hazelnut and chocolate connection does not make these snacks any less fancy – but it always makes me smile to remember our skinned knee childhood when we would sneak into the kitchen to eat Nutella from the jar. In the end, sometimes the best things in life are a little bit trashy deep down.