Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Me Like-a Milka


Before we get started, I have to apologize to Aaron. I had promised him that I'd answer his question next, which is a frackin' awesome question, by the way, but with my being gone, and having a sick child to deal with last week, I didn't have time to research his question. Aaron, I apologize and promise to sate your curiosity next week.

Greetings Squaddies! Welcome back. This week's question comes again from Andy. He asks:
Why is the Milka cow lilac?
For those of you not raised in Europe, Milka is Kraft food's best selling brand of milk chocolate. It's symbol is a lilac cow with a bell around it's neck. Why lilac? Well, it's a very complex and historically storied answer.

Actually, it totally isn't. Milka was created in Switzerland in 1901. At that time, Europe was well in the throes of the Art Nouveau movement. and lilac was considered to be a decadent, opulent color. Boom, lilac on the bar means rich, decadent chocolate within. No muss, no fuss.

As well as it being a nice, easy question for me to answer this week, this question also allows me to have my own version of a "who knows" question. Some background first. When Linda's dad used to be asked a question that could be easily answered with something like "who knows", he'd answer "I don't know. Why is K-Mart called K-Mart?" This always bugged me, because the naming of a store, especially K-Mart, can't be that hard to figure out. I bet it's because someone's name started with K. Sure enough, it was because it's a spin off of a store called S. S. Kresge. It took me all of about 5 minutes to learn that, and that was back when I had to spend 3 of those minutes dialing up to the internet. After learning that, his answer bugged me even more as it was not only so easy to learn, but almost 100% intuitive. I know have my own version of "Why is K-Mart called K-Mart?" Whenever anyone asks me a question I can't answer, I can now say "I don't know. Why is the Milka cow lilac?" People will leave me thinking that it's a grand mystery, but only I will know how simple it is. Well me and all of you. Please don't tell.

Andy, once again I thank you for your questions. Keep 'em coming people, and I promise to answer them, as long as I'm not on vacation.

Sources:

Wikipedia - Milka
Kraft Foods Inc - Milka and the purple cow

6 comments:

Aaron said...

All is forgiven my friend!

I wait patiently for your in-depth analysis of my question!

Ellie Creek Ellis said...

i like strawberry milk, banana mild, chocolate milk, plain milk, but i just don't know about lilac milk.

k o w said...

Milka? Never heard of it.

Booster MPS said...

I am with Keg on this one, never heard of it growing up or anything.

CatSpit said...

It's a Euro thing, bitches. Whole world out there ya know! :)

Anonymous said...

I consider myself as one of the greatest Milka fans, but for some reason I never thought about the lilac color on the cow. It just looks cool!!! Nevertheless, all that matters for me is the great taste and variety they always manage to come up with. One problem (only untill now) - very hard to find in the US, so I have been purchasing online from novobazar.com