Life

Here's All You Have To Say To Get Amazon's Alexa To Send You Free Nutella

by Lia Beck
Nutella; Amazon

If you didn't know, March 5 is Pancake Day, and Nutella is celebrating by offering free samples of the chocolate hazelnut spread. There is a catch, though: You have to ask Alexa or Google Assistant.

Nutella has teamed up with Send Me A Sample to bring people a treat starting on Tuesday, March 5 and continuing while supplies last. According to Nutella, you just have to tell Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant, "Send me a sample of Nutella," and a sample will be sent to your home for free. But first, the Send Me A Sample site explains that to get samples, you need to be registered: "You just need to create an account to start requesting samples. You can create an account by finding the Send Me a Sample skill in the Alexa and Google Assistant directories and following the steps to account link."

Send Me A Sample also explains that users can get samples whenever they see an advertisement with the Send Me A Sample logo: "Anywhere you see the 'Send Me a Sample' logo on an advert, you’ll know that it’s available to request by asking your voice assistant."

If you don't have an Alexa or Google Assistant speaker, you can still request samples through the Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa apps on a smartphone.

Pancake Day is not one of those arbitrary national "holidays" that fall on the same day each year, but rather what Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras is known as in some countries. It's also called Shrove Tuesday. Regardless of what one calls it, the point is the same: Eat a bunch of food before Lent begins. And in the case of those who call it Pancake Day, that means a lot of pancakes. According to the Mirror, while the date has long been significant in Christianity, "Pancake Day itself came much later as a way of using up rich foods, like eggs, milk and sugar before the 40 days of fasting."

Nutella

In addition to giving away the free samples, Nutella also has a collection of pancake animals tutorials fans of the spread can make to celebrate the day. These basically involve making various sizes and shapes of pancakes, covering them with Nutella, and positioning them so they look like cute little animals. For instance, (Flap) Jack the Fox and Cate the Caterpillar.

In other pancake related news, IHOP will be offering free pancakes on its Free Pancake Day, which is only a week after the actual Pancake Day on Tuesday, March 12. According to the restaurant chain's site, "On IHOP Free Pancake Day, visit any IHOP restaurant and get a FREE short stack of our Original Buttermilk Pancakes. Then donate to help children battling critical illnesses. Each stack served on IHOP Free Pancake Day helps us flip it forward for kids in need." Of course, this only fully works out if you didn't specifically give up pancakes for Lent.

However, or whenever, you're going to enjoy your pancakes, don't forget that you can have them with free Nutella, if you so choose. Or you can eat the Nutella without pancakes. That's totally acceptable, too.