I've probably consumed way more granola in my life than the average person. Mostly because of my former career as a field archaeologist. Granola, in bar form, made for an easy and portable breakfast and lunch. Even more so because I could carefully unwrap the bars on one end, and didn't have to touch the food itself, which was beneficial when I was shoveling out historic outhouses or exhuming graves without access to soap and water at lunchtime. Sometimes I would eat bars that were only granola-ish, like Power Bars or Clif Bars, but you get the idea. However, I'd never had granola from Switzerland in general, or from the Avalanche brand in particular. I sampled their original flavor, and the coconut, quinoa, and chocolate kind.
What constitutes granola is a little vague. It's typically made using rolled oats, nuts, and honey, but other ingredients are commonly added as well. Such as various other grains, fruit, and sometimes other sweeteners such as brown sugar. The way in which granola is eaten can vary, too. Sometimes it's in bar form, like how I usually had it, but sometimes the granola is loose, and is put in a bowl with milk as a breakfast-type cereal, or mixed into yogurts, pastries, or ice cream.
Granola was invented in 1863 by an American, Dr. James Caleb Jackson, at his sanitarium (which in those days usually meant a health spa) in Dansville, New York. Jackson had some distinctive views about health, some of which were arguably sound, and others which were, to put it mildly, incorrect and even harmful. For examples of the latter, Jackson was against the use of all drugs for medical purposes, and thought that masturbation was incredibly dangerous. Shortly after this culinary invention, it was ripped off by someone else. Specifically, John Harvey Kellogg made a food that was startling similar to granola, and even called by the same name. Then when Kellogg changed the name to avoid legal issues, he did so in the most minimal way possible, by changing one letter! (His was "granula," not "granola".) Somehow this worked, so I guess copyright laws were quite different back then. But the similarities don't end there--Kellogg also ran a health spa, and also had some weird, extreme, and wrong views about health. Kellogg was so opposed to masturbation that his "treatments" included genital tortures, to discourage boys and girls from partaking. But he was against sexual activity of any kind, even between married couples, for the purposes of procreation. Although he was married for a long time, Kellogg reportedly died a virgin at 92! He also had ugly racial and ethnic views, as he was a staunch eugenicist. Kellogg's less strict and crazy brother William Keith Kellogg ran the cereal company, which still exists to this day, unlike Jackson's granola. Over in Europe, in Switzerland in fact, another doctor with strange views developed his own version of granola. Dr. Maximilian Bircher-Benner's granola used only uncooked grains and fruit, as he thought humans should eat only raw foods. His take on it was named muesli, also referred to as museli. Despite these doctors' efforts, granola waned in popularity in the ensuing decades. But in the 1960's countercultural types revived it. Wavy Gravy pushed it at Woodstock, and Layton Gentry was nicknamed "Johnny Granola-Seed" for his promotion of it.
It happened again. The official company website for Avalanche was identified as potentially hazardous by my computer, so I didn't consult it. And I couldn't find much of anything about it from other online sites. So, about all I can tell you is that it's made in the Swiss village of Sachseln. This town of about 5,000 boasts two famous features. It's the geographic center of Switzerland, and it's the former home of (and possibly the birthplace?) of Switzerland's only, and patron saint--Nicholas of Flue (also rendered Niklaus von Flue, and Brother Klaus). And his wife, Dorothea Wyss. That's right, Nicholas spent much of his life as a soldier, farmer, husband, and father of 10, before answering the call of religious devotion as a semi-hermit. Allegedly he survived for 19 years solely on a diet of Eucharist. (This sounds like a wild exaggeration to me, since that substance doesn't have many necessary nutrients, such as Vitamin C, but that's the story.)
Avalanche Swiss granola, original flavor: This was loose granola, meaning it was messy to eat. The main ingredients were oats, wheat, rye, rice, corn, barley, coconut, almonds, hazelnuts, salt, sugar, and oils. Plain it was pretty mediocre for a granola. But in a bowl with milk, as a cereal, it was much improved. The milk really went well with the granola. Nicely crunchy, and with a good level of sweetness--enough to improve the taste, but not overly cloying. So I wouldn't particularly recommend it as a snack, plain, but as a cereal with milk it was quite good.
Avalanche Swiss granola--coconut, quinoa, and chocolate flavor: Bigger lumps than the original kind, but looked like typical loose granola, aside from the chocolate chunk additions. My opinion of it was pretty much identical to the original, too--it wasn't that special plain, but it was tasty as a breakfast cereal. Crunchy again, and the chocolate improved things, as it usually does. And to be fair, the photo on the back of the boxes shows it in a bowl with milk, so clearly that's the recommended way to eat it.
Finally, I was rather amused to see a modern respected nutritionist, Jayne Hurley, criticize granola. She was quoted as saying it's "basically cookies masquerading as a health food." Avalanche's addition of chocolate to one of their granolas kind of supports her claim. Also, after reading about the food's progenitors, it would be refreshing change to learn about a granola inventor who wasn't a sex-negative quack.
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