Peppero Day

Happy Peppero Day everyone! Have you gotten your Peppero today? 여러분 행복한빼빼로대이 보내세요~

Every November 11 of the year, Koreans celebrate Peppero Day, a day where the popular snack is enjoyed and exchanged. Originally, the day symbolises healthy growth where friends and families give one another Peppero in hopes of the receiver, having eaten the snack, will grow tall and slender like it. However, it has since been commercialised to become a second Valentine's Day where couples exchange lavish gifts to profess their love for each other.

Similar to the Japanese Pocky, the original Peppero manufactured by Lotte Company is a thin and long biscuit snack dipped in chocolate, although there are many other variations such as Strawberry, Almond Chocolate, Melon and Nude (chocolate in the center of the biscuit). Apart from these standard flavours, each year in accordance with the celebration, Peppero launches a new limited edition flavour to add to the selection, with this year's being White Cookie.

Bakeries, stationery shops and departmental stores can also be seen joining in the milking of poor consumers through the sale of homemade giant Pepperos, Peppero gift baskets and make-it-yourself Peppero kits. I don't know how much of these actually get sold before the Day itself but it sure helps to hype up the atmosphere when everywhere you go, you can't help but be reminded of the Day.

Alternatives of the day include Garaetteok Day, which promotes Farmer's Day through the exchange of the long and slender rice cake, and Pencil Day, very obviously coined by bookstores to increase sales of their stationery.

If you haven't gotten your snacks and if you're in no hurry to hop on the eating-on-1111-for-maximum-skinny bandwagon, I recommend you wait till tonight or tomorrow because that's when shops will put their leftover snacks on offer! Happy snacking!

xoxo, ❀