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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
On one hand, I'm compelled to defend the luxury brands, because they do taste better. And also, as a wine salesman, I'm often annoyed by people who pooh-pooh the things they don't understand.
But I really hate rank snobbery. In wine, I hate people who insist that "big Cabs", for example, are the only way to appreciate good wine. It always seems like a bunch of rich guys who use their cellar's average Parker score to compensate for (cough) their deficiencies in other areas. It has nothing to do with wine, or taste, and everything to do with perception.
"But, Charlie! Star Kist doesn't want tuna with good taste! ..."
So yeah, kudos for busting the chops of the snobs, but shame on you for failing to acknowledge the third way: putting in the effort usually yields better results. Sometime you should try one of those expensive chocolates alongside a couple of M&Ms and see if you can't tell the difference. When you get right down to it, the price is almost irrelevant. If you spend upwards of a few dollars per week on chocolate, it doesn't matter if it's from the Scharfen Berger company or M&M Mars. It's over-indulgence.
So spend a few extra pennies and taste with your tongue, not with your belly.
Chocolate became an acquired taste since large corporations started whoring out what chocolate really is. Melts in your mouth and not in your hand? Sounds like cheap materials and shoddy production, made for mass consumption and not any particular enjoyment. It’s no more snobbery to actually pay attention to one’s own tastes, and other people’s, than it is to be considerate of any other of our body’s senses. It’s what they’re there for. If you want to be anesthetized, fine: I leave you to your golden arches.
Additionally, the chocolate in bulk chunks, long available at Whole Foods and other such stores, is a far more cost-effective means of purchase for chefs and its mention makes me wonder if the writer had any clue what he was talking about.
The definition of pretentiousness, is elevating style over substance. Cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face. I would say that defending crap like Hershey’s because a few individuals’ enjoyment of high-priced chocolate is irksome fits the characterization of pretentious better than anything else.
The only thing worse than snobbery is psuedo-intellectual reverse snobbery.
Hit your knees and start making with the mea culpa, Oliver.
P.S. It's "Hershey," NOT "Hershey's," you hack.
Whilst reading this article, from my mouth spewed forth $3.26 worth of my 72% Venezuelen single-origin chocolate. I had been swirling it around my mouth for some minutes, *this* close to identifying the 398th flavor therein, when the article so uproused me.
You dare mention the tagline of M+M in an article about real chocolate? Real chocolate should melt in your hand, and when you neglect to suck every bit of chocolate goodness off your hand and adjust your shirt, that shirt should be ruined. Forever. In fact, I've used M+Ms and Hershey Kisses to remove tough grass stains from my shirt, such an imposter is that chocolate.
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But seriously: I consider dark chocolate to be one of the finest pleasures in life. A single square enjoyed slowly can brighten my whole day. Percentage of cacao, the snap, the shine, the label - none of it matters, just the taste. The only requirement I have is that I moan helplessly when the chocolate starts to melt.
(Actually, the labels, often poorly translated, are part of the fun. One bar's copy starts off: "Deep in the heart of a magic valley, that you can only reach by sea..."_)
I'd highly recommend chocosphere.com to anyone who wants to explore dark chocolate, and I'd doubly recommend trying chocolate with chili in it while you're at it. It's not spicy hot - you won't be reaching for milk/bread - but your mouth heats up, and if you don't feel like reaching for the nearest mouth and ravaging it, you have no soul.
I've always liked the dark choclate from Hershey's, but I recently tried a 60% bar and it tasted like shit. It was inedible, I threw the whole thing away and I consider myself a chocoholic. It's amazing how the "Baker's chocolate" we tried to eat as a kid is now a luxury item.
If the writer really did taste a high quality, high cocoa % chocolate and he thought it tasted like crayons... well... does he have allergies? Was he congested? Did he have a cold perhaps? Any of these factors can prevent the sense of taste from working properly. If high quality chocolate tastes like crayons to you then something is off with your nose/mouth. It may not be to your personal taste, you may think it's disgusting and that's fine, but... well, it just doesn't taste like crayons. Sorry.
I really detest the pretentious nature of a certain subset of folks who enjoy wine, chocolate, etc, in a 'holier than thou' sort of way. I think spending $300 on a bottle of wine is silly, I think spitting wine out is silly, and I think the whole tasting ritual can be a bit overblown. I probably couldn't tell the difference between a 97 point rated wine and a 95 point rated wine. But I could probably tell a difference between a 95 pt and an 85 pt wine. Acknowledging that there are differences in quality in products and even that some people who devote a great deal of time to it may be able to better judge quality doesn't make one pretentious or a snob.
Leave the pretense and rituals to those that enjoy it. I just buy things that taste good. High quality, high cocoa chocolate(Lindt makes some tasty stuff) really does taste different from the stuff in mass market candybars. It may not be to every individuals taste but there most definitely is a difference.
The writer is shocked that there's people who don't think Hershey makes the best chocolate? Well sit down before I tell you this, but there's folks out there who think Budweiser is pretty lousy(http://beeradvocate.com/), Bose stereos are crap(http://www.soundstage.com/), and that Starbucks isn't the last word in coffee(http://www.howtobrewcoffee.com/).
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