Talk about global fusion cuisine. We have discovered a dish created in Japan which combines the two national dishes of France and Great Britain – the croissant and the KitKat.
When Joseph Rowntree launched the Rowntree’s Chocolate Crisp in 1935, later to be reborn as the KitKat, he couldn’t have known that this simple York bar would become an international culinary superstar.
It is the Pronto coffee house in Japan that we have to thank for the KitKat croissant. Imagine the buttery French pastry gently stuffed with not one but two KitKats and then popped in the oven for a few minutes.
The result? A flaky, melty, oozy, sticky concoction that sends the pleasurometer off the dial.
Just don’t wear your finest white shirt when eating it.
Now the question is – which of York’s many cafés and bakeries is going to do the decent thing and put this on their menu?!?! Not that we’re desperate or anything.
As usual, York City got there first.
For some years City’s ground was renamed “KitKat Crescent”, to the universal admiration of travelling football fans everywhere.
And if you translate that into your actual French, what do you get? Why, KitKat Croissant of course.
You might think no one would be more crazy about KitKats than us Yorkies (to mix our chocolate bars for a second.)
But in Japan they have long taken their love of our chocolate bar to new heights. This, linguists assure us, is partly because KitKat sounds like the Japanese good luck phrase “kitto katsu” (“you shall surely win”).
Earlier this year Japanese restaurant chain First Kitchen launched the KitKat sandwich – KitKats covered in whipped cream and orange peel, sandwiched between two slices of white bread.
Last year Nestlé Japan released bakeable KitKat bars, and you can also get KitKat pizza.
In some ways British cooking still lags so far behind…
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