Choco Pies -- the kind of thing you would probably only eat if you were driving cross-country late at night -- are a symbol of the richness of the outside world. The gigantic calorie load that they represent has boggled the minds of North Koreans.

They're MADE in South Korea:

The pies, which are produced in South Korea, are wildly popular in North Korea. Fearful that the treats would encourage an uprising, Kim Jong-unreportedly banned Choco Pies from the country earlier this month. The pies, which have become something of a political statement, are viewed as a symbol of capitalism and represent a taste of the world outside North Korea.

Choco Pies have occasionally been doled out in North Korea as bonuses to workers in the Kaesong Industrial Complex. Employees make around $100 a month there, according to the news site Daily NK, but only take home about 30% of their wages as a result of deductions by the North Korean government. The pies were used to supplement low wages and give the workers a literal taste of the outside world.

"Choco Pies are an important mind-changing instrument ... [North Koreans] are suffering and starving, but thanks to Choco Pies, DVDs and large-scale labour migration to China, people don't buy the old story [that the South is even poorer] and the government does not sell it any more," Andrei Lankov, an expert on Korean studies, told The Guardian. Other items like DVDs have also been transported to North Korea via balloons.

In America they're called MOON pies.  That would never fly in North Korea.

Why not? Moon pie has a nice ring to it.