NECCO wafers

How to explain NECCO wafers to a European? Back in the 1800s, Union soldiers fighting in the Civil War used to carry “hub wafers”, a cheap and durable candy substitute manufactured in Boston, a city which Oliver Wendell Holmes had nicknamed “The Hub of the Universe”. In 1901, the company making hub wafers became the New England Confectionery Company — NECCO® — and the wafers were rebranded accordingly. During the Great Depression, NECCO Wafers were one of the candies cheap enough that pretty much anyone could afford to buy them as a treat.