Honestly I cannot even really explain the reference in the first panel. It’s a shibboleth for Mennonites from in/around Winkler, Manitoba; it may have been a popular snack combination at one time, or is possibly just funny because it really gives one the opportunity to play up a particular characteristic of the “Mennonite Accent”.

I don’t naturally have a “Mennonite Accent” (having never learned to speak Low German properly) but I can switch it on to the delight and amusement of others. I’m actually a little baffled as to why it’s so funny. I slacken my jaw a little and start dead-panning my way through a story about Peter Heinrichs getting his tractor overturned out by Schoenwiese (pronounced sorta like “Shine-vays”) and people from my area are in stitches. Not that I don’t find it funny myself, but I’m the sort of person who likes to think about why things are funny and this sort of eludes me. [March 13, 2012]