This is a sharp and witty article, sure, but's also just another variation on a tired Salon template: some smarmy know-all writerly persona trots out their educated disdain at the bourgey consumerist masses and their sucka adulation of a bogus product. This time round it's chocolate, but this piece is up there with the screeds against luxe strollers and raw dog food. It's too bad this sort of article ultimately boils down to a big "so what?".

It would have been SO much more interesting to read about HOW the beautiful, glistening chocolate marketing machine is going about confounding us with its ideas about what "good" versus "bad" chocolate is and why it matters and to whom. I wish there were more in this article about the deceptiveness and cleverness of so much of that marketing, and less snickering insinuation that's it's simply a blind, misguided drive for status.

Why? Because there actually is variation in so-called luxury chocolates, in all chocolate, in fact. To laugh this off as no more than marketing is no more than a silly rhetorical flourish. Sure, those chunks of Saran-wrapped stuff at Wholefoods are often stale (like anything wrapped in plastic and left out for weeks) and a bar of expensive Lavender Dagoba does taste like soap. But even a tiny square of Amedei's Chuao IS richer and more incredible than a pound of Dove. And none of this makes me a snob. It's just that I can tell the difference.

So excuse me while I take another bite of my artisan Modicana Earl Grey tea-flavored bar and think about how, while I might be disappointed that this chocolate doesn't taste of Earl Grey tea at all, at least I've still got the sense of curiosity that got me to buy this particular treat at all.

P.S. Hershey's owns Scharffen Berger.

Salon has rarely allowed such excessively hysterical claptrap to grace its front page.

Poor Oliver Broudy, self anointed arbiter of snobbery, lost in his indignation that some people out there enjoy tasting, writing about, reading about, talking about certain kinds of chocolate.

I would like to point out that Oliver misses a fundamental point - that high percentage chocolate tastes [i]good[/i], and that part of the fun of eating this sort of chocolate comes from observing the subtle but [i]distinct[/i] differences in taste that exist in chocolate from different regions.

For heavens sake, Oliver. [i]The joke's on YOU[/i]. Stop complaining about what people should or should not enjoy. Class sensitivity and bourgeois guilt have no place in the simple pleasure of eating a piece of chocolate. Simply [i]pop a chocolate in your mouth[/i]. Your tastebuds will thank you for it.

PS. I strongly suggest anything from Michel Cluizel, or perhaps Amedei. And I don't care at all that these names sound quintessentially continental, because it really doesn't matter.

PPS. And if it still matters, you can always go back to slabs of Hershey's.

say what you will about foofy chocolate, whether you like it or not, some of the gourmet chocolate companies have a conscience and are doing good things globally.

Endangered Species Chocolate Company (you can buy at Whole Foods) and Equal Exchange both come to mind.

Endangered is ethically traded and certified Fair Trade by TransFair USA, and Equal Exchange, which makes damn fine coffee too, is the oldest and largest fair trade for-profit company in the U.S.

I like their products, but old trashy childhood habits die hard, and I do still have a taste for Hershey Bars and kisses once in awhile.

Blue Collar upbringing.

Neither parents graduated.

Mom, a cocktail waitress, had a thing about taste...

Strong coffee instead of dishwater,

green leaf instead of iceberg,

Panda instead of Twizzlers, that sort of thing.

Why? Who knows.

For some reason, we listened to good music.

We liked foreign films, documentaries etc.

We liked a little science in our religion.

We read books... unabridged!

We always dug chocolate. The darker the better.

We even bought the bitter 'baker's' stuff at Safeway,

before we were identified as a 'market.'

We were the farthest thing from 'foofy.'

Or hippie, or yuppie, or trendy or whatever.

We just kind of 'got it'... CHOICE.

SOME PEOPLE GET IT.

For the rest of y'all, enjoy those Twizzlers (which are OK after all).

Down with all us bourgeois Panda-eaters.

Bring back iceberg lettuce and weak coffee!

Power to the people...!

This article is a perfect example of why I let my subscription lapse just a couple of months ago. I started reading salon in 1999 and I really enjoyed its political coverage. When they moved to a subscription model some years later, I didn't hesitate and I introduced other people to salon with the hopes that they would support this e-magazine too. And then something happened in ... perhaps the late of 2004 or early 2005. I clicked through my annual resub in the spring of 2005 thinking I'll give them a year to turn this around. During that year I only saw salon go downhill and when my sub expired in the spring of 2006, I let it go, now just clicking through for a site pass if there is something I want to read.

This article is an example of precisely why I no longer subscribe: the write had no idea about the topic he was writing, the topic was poorly approached, and the topic was of little importance in the grander scheme of things.

By the way, Oliver, I've been buying high end chocolate for much longer than "the last few years" and good high end chocolate does not taste like crayons. And hershey tastes like overly sweet sh**, although admittedly the way individual people sense bitter differs---its genetic---and I love bitter foods and hate sweet stuff. Excuse me while I clean off some Dagoba lavender chocolate crumbs from my keyboard.

In regards to chocolate tasting like crayons, the much beloved Hershey bar does exactly that since it contains paraffin so it won't melt in Arizona and similar climates.

It's also a matter of candies for folk who like bittersweet. As a kid, and even now, I will eat all the Hershey Special Dark in any candy assortment in preference to the others. And the bittersweet of the fancier varieties are a very nice way to end a meal with friends.

Also, as an FYI, there are some people who don't have a sweet tooth, and for them, sour and bitter desserts are the favorite choice. I freaked people out as a five-year-old by choosing the lemon sorbet in preference over all the other 31 flavors.

My favorite candy is also black licorice, even as a child. Booga booga.