Joy to the United States.

Last August I wrote about a horrible mockery of the Kinder Eggs. Kinder Eggs, officially known as Kinder Surprise, are not allowed in the United States because they pose a choking hazard to American urchins. The mockery mentioned had a hollow egg made of some gasoline-flavored pseudo chocolate, but instead of the lousy toy (a bust of a Star Wars character -- you can't even play with the top half of a character) being inside the egg as with a classic Kinder Surprise, it was on the outside. A non-fun toy non-surprise outside an inedible egg.

At the time I linked to Mark Steyn, who'd had Kinder Eggs confiscated at the border. In his article he mentioned that Kinder had come out with a new confection called the Kinder Joy, which had a toy surprise but not inside the edible part. Well, I got one.

Dreamin' 'bout my bundle of Joy.

I'm gonna start cutting down the candy like I promised, honest! But the Kinder Joy doesn't have that much anyway. Half the package is a little toy, plus a spoon, and the other half is not that big (110 calories). 

That's the spoon, on the right.

Why do you need a spoon? Because the confection part is not a half of a chocolate egg, but rather a double-chocolate yolk nutty goodness in a creamy something-or-other white, served in a plastic bowl. I tasted a good deal of hazelnut, although it's not an official ingredient.

I liked the little bowl of sweetness; it was an odd but oddly satisfying treat. Having to eat it with the spoony thing made it last longer.

What about the other half, with the death-dealing choking hazard of doom?

It was a cute little toy, a ball (some assembly required) with instructions for making your own pins so you could go bowling. Look, I'm a big boy! I finished putting the ball together all by myself!

Kinder calls this "Edutainment."

Real Kinder products, unlike the mockery, have excellent chocolate taste, and although this toy was not branded as Star Wars, it's much more fun and something a kid could actually play with.

Unless the kid tried to eat it. Look, let's all promise Homeland Security that we'll keep the tiny toys away from toddlers, all right? We're supposed to be the nation that was too independent for the metric system, not the nation that can't be trusted to give our children treats without killing them.