NYTimes: Dark May Be King, but Milk Chocolate Makes a Move

It’s a two page read, but well worth your time if you’re a chocolate lover. I was particularly interested by the material at the end, describing how milk chocolate came to be developed, popular, and industrialized, and about the characteristic “sour” flavor of most American milk chocolates.

The “cacao cultists” that helena mentions above come in for a fair share of scrutiny as well, and well deserved. I think in the end, the overall lesson from the article is that there’s no substitute for quality, whether you like milk or dark chocolate.

And, we can probably agree, most of the chocolate sold in the US is not very high quality. So while people might “prefer” milk chocolate, I am not sure they’ve given either kind of chocolate a real try.

In any case, to each his own. Mine’s dark, most of the time.

Dark chocolate is trendy, not necessarily better. Of course, many people love dark chocolate (you, for example), and that’s just fabulous. But I would be willing to bet my stash of goodies from La Maison du Chocolat that there are a bunch of poseurs out there singing the praises of dark chocolate who secretly prefer milk, but they just don’t A, want the added calories of milk choc, or B, want the flavonoids (or whatever the health benefit du jour is) of dark choc.

All this dark chocolate hype has GOT to go! I don’t care if dark chocolate cures the dengue virus; it still tastes like crap, and most Americans AGREE!

Recent (or longtime, depends on who you ask) reports about the health benefits of dark chocolate are just dandy. But all this hype has led to the creation of a self-righteous contingent of people who now say that they only like dark chocolate or Venezuelan chocolate without sugar or chocolate that is 72% cacao with beans from Indonesia, etc.

Give me a break.

Milk chocolate is still the best tasting chocolate to eat. I don’t believe any of these bandwagoners who say they “prefer dark chocolate.” To me, dark chocolate tastes like spackle.

When I write my letter to the Starbucks CEO telling him why I am not a fan of Chantico, I’ll say something like this:

Dear Howie:

Nice try with Chantico. As anyone who has traveled the world in search of the greatest chocolate will tell you, it’s too heavy on the dark and too light on the milk. If I would have concocted this concoction, I would have made it taste like what pours out of molten chocolate cake made with Scharffen Berger’s 41% milk chocolate bar. Next time, try consulting women with PMS. They’ll steer you the right way.

Signed,
Milky Mamasita