People all over the world love Nutella. No kidding: A French family actually tried to name their kid after the stuff, someone invented a lock specifically to secure Nutella jars, and McDonald's Italia recently unveiled a Nutella burger.
But where did this addictive treasure come from? As it turns out, the story runs thick with cocoa, hazelnuts, and blood. That last part isn't literally true, but hey! Now that we have your attention, buckle up: You're in for a crash course on the history of Nutella.
Let's start at the beginning -- in 1806, that is, during the peak years of the Napoleonic Wars. You can credit the origin of the first cocoa and hazelnut combination to the tiny French emperor himself: It was his Continental Blockade that hampered trade and cut off access to the Piedmont region of Italy -- which, at the time, was the producer of the finest chocolate in the world. Cocoa prices skyrocketed due to high demand and low supply, and chocolatiers in the capital city of Turin began adding hazelnut -- an ingredient that was bountiful in Piedmont -- in an attempt to stretch out their batches, resulting in product called gianduja. While delicious, the combination didn't replace chocolate entirely; once the war ended and cocoa was accessible again, pure chocolate came back in style.