In preparing for World Nutella Day on Tuesday (send us your entries!), I decided to have an empirical study (and by empirical, I mean whatever I decide is obviously correct) about which fresh fruit goes best with Nutella. For you Nutella Virgins, you may use my results but I suggest you find out for yourself and let me know!
I took five ordinary fresh fruit and paired each of them with that nutty spread, Nutella: a pear, banana, apple, kiwi and (blood) orange.
Bananas
Banana are a pretty forgiving fruit – they tolerate being mixed around with everything from strawberries to nuts to cinnamon, but they have their own category with Nutella. The first time I had a Nutella and Banana crepe on the streets of Paris, I thought I might propose marriage to the crepe maker!
Elvis Presley’s favorite sandwich was Peanut Butter and Bananas, and when I tasted it on the streets of Memphis 10 years ago, I thought it was pretty good myself. But I think if the King had known about Nutella, he would have had Nutella and Banana sandwiches, too.
Bananas and Nutella were made to be together!
Apples
I spent most of my childhood years hoping that today’s afternoon snack would be the ever-popular apple with the core taken out and filled with peanut butter. For some reason, there were alway carrot sticks or raisins in it, too. Though apples are what I usually pair with peanut butter, it goes pretty well with Nutella as well – though next time I’m going to eat all three of them together!
Blood Oranges
If for some strange reason you’ve never tried Blood Oranges (and recently many bloggers are talking about them), you should definitely try one now. As in, stop reading this post and go get one!
When I studied abroad in Italy in 1999, I have a very distinct memory of blood red oranges. It was in Venice at a disco during a particularly cold March. When I ordered a Screwdriver, the bartender in this tiny bar pulled out a pitcher of fresh-squeezed blood orange juice and made the best Screwdriver I’ve ever had in my life. No joke.
That didn’t help any sobriety aspirations I had for the evening, let me tell you.
Now as far as Nutella goes with blood oranges, well, I will let you all tell me. This orange was perfection, although not as dark as other blood oranges, delicious, tart and juicy, and possibly the worst thing to pair with Nutella.
I love Nutella, I love blood oranges, but I can’t eat them together.
Pear
The pear is often an underrated fruit. It’s pretty ugly on the outside, not that interesting inside, but it is delicious and great when paired with other flavors. I like the grittiness of it and I prefer a hard pear that I get a bit of a crunch with.
Diana Krall does a good interpretation of the song, “Peel Me a Grape,” but in my house, it’s “Peel me a Pear” and S usually obliges me. I don’t really like eating a pear like an apple, bite after bite off the core, but I can eat thousands of slices of pear. Yes, I’m weird.
Therefore, slices of pear smothered in Nutella sounded perfect to me.
Kiwi
I love this tart, bright green fruit with dark, black seeds inside. Mother Nature is definitely creative.
I decided to try a kiwi “carpaccio,” a thin slice of kiwi with Nutella but the kiwi’s tartness conflicted pretty strongly with Nutella. I think the best way to eat these two things together would to have much more Nutella than kiwi. It only takes a sliver!
What’s your favorite? What fruit should be tried that I didn’t mention?
Don’t forget you to send us your entries for World Nutella Day to nutelladay [[at]] nutelladay [[dot]] com
