(Tasteless) Fighting words: American chocolate

[Fragile Bird]

“It tastes like sawdust that’s been drowned in sugar and soaked with baby vomit”.

Guardian columnist Arwa Mahdawi, expressing an opinion about Hershey bars shared by millions of people around the world.

Folks who contributed to TTTNE and who did Christmas gift exchanges over the years became used to Europeans pleading with their dear American friends not to send them US chocolate. I perfectly understand loving the stuff you’re raised on, to a certain point, but once you become a grown up don’t your taste buds develop to recognize crap when you stick it in your mouth?

Once upon a time I loved Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups but decades ago stopped eating them because…..I thought they were too something. Too rich? Too sweet? No, it was because I eat European chocolate and the too was actually too gross. Costco had a box of the thin version on sale months ago and I stupidly bought some for old times sake, but there they are, sitting on my kitchen table largely untouched because they taste horrible. I eat one if I want to spoil my appetite. The amount of chocolate I’ve eaten between the time I bought them and today is fairly substantial, because I’m a chocoholic, but don’t count the Reese’s in that chocolate haze.

Trust me, even Canadian chocolate is better.

I will say that there are boutique chocolate makers in the US that have learned to make chocolate (I suspect they trained in Europe), but definitely not the mass-producers in the US.

<glove thrown down>

[Which Tyler]

She's right, but British* mass-made chocolate isn't great either, albeit far superior to American.

Of course, all countries will have perfectly good and even great artisans, but that's really not the point of the article.

 

*and is becoming worse, largely as our mass-makers of chocolates have been bought by American companies who are gradually changing the recipes to American).

[Spockydog]

Here you go, Bird.... 

Why is American chocolate so disgusting? You really don’t want to know

[Gorn]

It's not about knowledge. The Hershey Company knows exactly how to make good chocolate, it's not some secret knowledge shared by a guild of a few wise artisans. They choose not to, because a) it costs more money, and b) their consumers are happily paying for their existing product.

Ferrero is my personal favorite for mass-produced chocolates. Marabou is also good, although you can only find them in IKEA here. Cadbury is OK. Lindt is overrated.

And adding more cocoa doesn't make a chocolate better. "Fancy" dark chocolates with 70% or 80% cocoa aren't sweets, they're masochism.

[Spockydog]

8 minutes ago, Gorn said:

And adding more cocoa doesn't make a chocolate better. "Fancy" dark chocolates with 70% or 80% cocoa aren't sweets, they're masochism.

But these are essentially cooking chocolates. 

Dairy Milk used to be my favourite, but it doesn't taste like it used to. 

Anyway, in my experience, Swiss chocolate is the best.  

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Fighting words: chocolate is overrated. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

8 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Fighting words: chocolate is overrated. 

Dude, I let your support for Chelsea slide, but there are limits...

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

17 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Dude, I let your support for Chelsea slide, but there are limits...

McCarthy is pro-chocolate. Pick your side!

[IheartIheartTesla]

tl;dr, many American companies such as Hershey use fresh dairy milk in their chocolate, which contains lipase in it; the theory goes that this decomposes the milk fats into butyric acid, providing the chocolate with a slightly tangy taste. Some of the more sensationalist claims are that butyric acid is also found in vomit, therefore leading to the notion that American chocolate tastes like vomit. However, butyric acid is also found in milk so a better analogy is milk that is slowly turning sour. I also hate how some of these claims use some sort of transitive nature of chemicals - "hey, chemical X is found in carpets and in your food therefore you are eating carpet"

Anyway, most of it comes from sense memory of chocolate you consumed when you were younger, and hence Europeans feel a slight revulsion consuming American chocolate. American adults have no problem with it on the other hand. I grew up in India, and to be honest have found Hershey's acceptable as an adult 

PS - most of this info is in a HuffPo article, if you go down the rabbit hole of the links provided in this thread.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

4 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

McCarthy is pro-chocolate. Pick your side!

Broken clock, DMC appreciating one of my Florida jokes etc. (yeah, I feel like that Florida thing has gotten a bit out of control).

I mean, Gaetz is a despicable person, but him calling McCarthy a squatter is still genuinely funny. As a throwback, who hates chocolates (other than American Chocolate), also prefers cake over ice cream. Monsters!

[Wade1865]

Literally fighting words. Wars have been fought over it 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

11 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Broken clock, DMC appreciating one of my Florida jokes etc. (yeah, I feel like that Florida thing has gotten a bit out of control).

I mean, Gaetz is a despicable person, but him calling McCarthy a squatter is still genuinely funny. As a throwback, who hates chocolates (other than American Chocolate), also prefers cake over ice cream. Monsters!

I've had cake maybe three times in my life. It's a very basic, almost trash, dessert.

[LongRider]

55 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Fighting words: chocolate is overrated. 

Agree, but you are wrong on cake.        

[Spockydog]

12 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I've had cake maybe three times in my life. It's a very basic, almost trash, dessert.

 

[Gorn]

15 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I've had cake maybe three times in my life. It's a very basic, almost trash, dessert.

That only means you haven't had good cake. There's nothing basic about Sachertorte or Tiramisu.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

2 minutes ago, Gorn said:

That only means you haven't had good cake. There's nothing basic about Sachertorte or Tiramisu.

Sachertorte, but not with american chocolate I presume. 

[Maltaran]

3 minutes ago, Gorn said:

That only means you haven't had good cake. There's nothing basic about Sachertorte or Tiramisu.

I wouldn’t call tiramisu a cake, personally, it’s more a dessert

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Maltaran said:

I wouldn’t call tiramisu a cake, personally, it’s more a dessert

 

[JGP]

1 hour ago, Maltaran said:

I wouldn’t call tiramisu a cake, personally, it’s more a dessert

Cake isn't a dessert in the UK?

 

Yeah, I've had enough of this monarchy bullshit in Canada.   

[Tyria]

Yeah, I agree with Tesla that Hershey chocolate tastes like it was made with sour milk (vaguely remember hearing it has something to do with rennet, but not sure). It even smells wrong. Mr Tyr was in the US a while back for his sister's wedding. He bought a KitKat, and everyone laughed when he spit it out after one bite. Said it was revolting.

I mostly eat Cadbury's in Canada, but that's what I ate before we moved from Scotland, and when we would go back. That and Penguins *nom nom*. There is a difference in the Cadbury's chocolate too. We finally have a British store again, and I spent a stooopid amount on meat pies, sausage rolls, candies, and chocolate. The UK Cadbury's is much smoother.

As for things made with real sugar, my sister and I were huge Pepsi drinkers (she still is). Going back to Scotland, we grudgingly had to get Coke a few times. Thing was, it tasted good, and that was because it was made with real sugar. I remember back in the 80s, the Pepsi challenge was huge. One summer day, there were booths set up all around the downtown. I stopped at every one, and won, because Coke here tastes like farts. Probably still would have won in the UK, but might have been close.