Like many of my fellow chocolate lovers, I am forever grateful
to the ancestors who discovered the wonderful secrets of the cocoa
bean.
Like many of my fellow chocolate lovers, I am forever grateful to the ancestors who discovered the wonderful secrets of the cocoa bean.
Oh, other desserts can be great to eat. Some spectacular in fact. But nothing satisfies a true chocolate connoisseur like a good piece of chocolate.
What constitutes great chocolate flavor depends on individual tastes. Some like the bittersweet taste of dark chocolate. New research shows that dark chocolate may not only taste good, but might have some health benefits as well.
There are those of us who turn our noses up at the bitter chocolates. Our palettes will only be satisfied by the sweet milk chocolate.
Any true chocoholic knows that chocolate varies from place to place. There are the mass-marketed chocolates the non-chocolate lovers will wolf down given the chance.
OK, to be honest, chocoholics craving a fix will eat mass-marketed chocolate over nothing, but ask a chocoholic their favorites, and be prepared to sit a while and listen.
I was in a local tire store recently, waiting for an invoice to be printed when somehow the conversation turned to snack foods. I confessed that while I could happily pass the chips, french fries, pie and ice-cream, chocolate was my favorite treat. This led to a 30-minute conversation with the tire man. It seems I’d met a fellow chocoholic. While his tastes led to dark chocolate and mine milk chocolate, our enthusiasm for this once royal food was real.
His eyes lit up as he mentioned various manufacturers of the chocolate he’s discovered. Other countries were mentioned, each place rated by the chocolate it sold. I’ve also done a bit of traveling, mainly in Europe. In my milk-chocolate-loving opinion, England beats the other countries hands down.
Germany tends to place their emphasis on the dark chocolates. They excel in making the bittersweet chocolates palatable. Swiss chocolate bars tend to have fillings such as raspberry, cherry or liqueur. If I’m eating a candy bar, I usually prefer straight chocolate or a cookie type filling.
My first experience with chocolate in France involved some delicious looking pastries. I practically drooled at the bakery window as I gazed longingly at layered cakes and desserts, many made with chocolate. After purchasing a couple of these delectable looking treats, I eagerly bit into one. What a huge disappointment!
It seems the French spend hours making things look sweet, then fail to put sugar or flavoring in their desserts.
In Amsterdam I found some great cookies with a layer of chocolate on top. Realizing that chocolate consumers come in the bittersweet and sweet variety, the cookies were geared for either choice. I ate several boxes during my stay in Holland.
But in my humble opinion, after years of eating chocolate, I have to say England won my heart. For some reason the Cadbury chocolate in England is much richer than the chocolate here. A fellow chocoholic told me that manufacturers here use more wax and less fat than the chocolate makers in England.
I don’t know if that’s the case, but nothing tasted as rich and creamy as the Cadbury chocolate bars, cookies, breakfast spread and anything else I could get my chocolate-loving hands on.
If the Cadbury chocolate itself wasn’t enough, we found one of my favorite candy bars in England. It’s called Violet Crumble. It’s got a candy honeycomb center and is covered in milk chocolate. I can’t help but wonder what customs thought when I came back with a suitcase laden full of chocolate products.
Here in the United States, nothing appeals to my chocolate taste buds like See’s Candies.Currently my favorite See’s are butterscotch squares, but I’ll try almost anything See’s has to offer.
My recent visit to the tire store reminded me that true chocoholics can be found in all walks of life. What we share is a passion for a truly special food. And when life sends challenges our way, we know that as long as there’s chocolate, we’ve got a fighting chance.
Cindy Brown is a Free Lance correspondent. Her column appears every Monday.
