Chocolats
Chocolate is not a snack. It is not a food to be taken lightly. It is a magical, sacred, refined particle of universal truth reflecting all that is good and right with the world. And so it should be treated.
Sometimes I think about what life was like a few hundred years ago, when chocolate was not something you could pick up at the corner store in large quantities. This is also back before ice cream and penicillin were invented, and let’s face it, if anything could have made plague and corsets more bearable, it would have been chocolate. How did civilization even evolve? Come to think of it, the Mayans had discovered cocoa and look where they are (or aren’t) now.
But I digress. A little while ago I stumbled upon a little chocolate shop. It was mesmerizing. It was beyond reality. It was where cocoa came to become a Broadway star.
Display cases surrounded me, small glass raised plates extending painted little cubes of concentrated aromatic bliss. This was chocolate. This was how it was always intended to be created, admired, lavished with love and consumed with much respect and no mercy. Lavender ganache, India spice filling, chile pepper infused flavors topped one another in creativity and inventiveness. Each cube was encoded with a painted pattern on top to reveal its contents. There was a catalogue. A catalogue! Do you have a catalogue Hershey’s? No? I didn’t think so.
This is what chocolate should be: an experience, created with love and devotion. I savored the experience of wandering the store and admiring the displays, then carefully compiling a box to take home and enjoy.
I admit, I appreciate being able to find chocolate at the corner store. I appreciate the fact that it is attainable to all and is an equalizing element of society, infusing it with joy and deliciousness on all levels. It can be found with or without dairy, soy, or sugar content, yet retaining all flavour so that anyone with any diet can still partake. Is there anything else quite like it?
Sometimes I think about what life was like a few hundred years ago, when chocolate was not something you could pick up at the corner store in large quantities. This is also back before ice cream and penicillin were invented, and let’s face it, if anything could have made plague and corsets more bearable, it would have been chocolate. How did civilization even evolve? Come to think of it, the Mayans had discovered cocoa and look where they are (or aren’t) now.
Display cases surrounded me, small glass raised plates extending painted little cubes of concentrated aromatic bliss. This was chocolate. This was how it was always intended to be created, admired, lavished with love and consumed with much respect and no mercy. Lavender ganache, India spice filling, chile pepper infused flavors topped one another in creativity and inventiveness. Each cube was encoded with a painted pattern on top to reveal its contents. There was a catalogue. A catalogue! Do you have a catalogue Hershey’s? No? I didn’t think so.
This is what chocolate should be: an experience, created with love and devotion. I savored the experience of wandering the store and admiring the displays, then carefully compiling a box to take home and enjoy.
I admit, I appreciate being able to find chocolate at the corner store. I appreciate the fact that it is attainable to all and is an equalizing element of society, infusing it with joy and deliciousness on all levels. It can be found with or without dairy, soy, or sugar content, yet retaining all flavour so that anyone with any diet can still partake. Is there anything else quite like it?
I think not.
Ummm yum!! This made me think of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory!
ReplyDeleteI love me some chocolate! I just might have to go pick some up on my lunch break today.
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