Chocolate Awareness, Indian style*



This chocolate bar caused me a serious bit of hesitation. My inital thought was:

milk chocolate (yum) + Tikka Masala (also yum) = Ewwww

I thought the Chocolate Bacon Bar was a bit extreme, but candy and Indian food??? Don’t worry your pretty little head, however. All that “masala” means in this case is a warm peppery flavor. If you haven’t tasted spicy and sweet before, you are in for a treat. In most cases the sweet confuses your tongue. Instead of thinking “spicy”, it’s more like a nice warmth at the back of your throat. It adds to the sweetness, like drinking hot cocoa. There’s a touch of spice like cinnamon or cardamom as well.

I quite like this combination, but perhaps I’m a little too avant garde in this respect. A couple of years ago I entered a spicy/sweet combination in the State Fair cookie contest. The recipe was for my great chocolate chip cookies, to which I had added a nice bit of white pepper. I called them Zippy Chippies (cute, no?). I thought they killed†, but the judges felt otherwise. They were my only cookies not to place! Stupid judges.

This candy bar is strictly chocolate (no chunks of anything). It’s lovely and creamy; very high quality. If you happen to come across one of these, I’d recommend trying it. Definitely worth your while.

*Have you noticed that nobody sits “Indian style” anymore. It’s now exclusively “criss-cross-applesauce”. I suppose “Indian style” is not PC. Although I’m not sure which Indians consider this disrespectful; the Americans or the Southern Asians?. I though naming something after someone is a compliment (Chicken à la King, for example. Or Fetticine Alfredo.) But I suppose it’s a big insult. What do I know?

†Scoring at the State Fair is 40% appearance, 30% originality, 15% texture, 15% flavor. So originality is much more important than how the cookies taste. So weird. So even if you show up with the world’s best peanut butter cookies, you’ll lose. They’ve got to have something else going for them.

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4 thoughts on “Chocolate Awareness, Indian style*

  1. I noticed this angst in a part-Inuit “Indian” woman when I took a cultural awareness class during my MS degree. She had a chip on her shoulder the size of Hoover Dam. She ranted on about the insult of naming sports teams after “Native American” tribes.

    “But I don’t understand,” I told her. “The only other kind of sports team names are of particularly strong, ferocious or triumphant creatures, such as lions, eagles, etc. Why would naming a team the “Chiefs” insult anyone? Wouldn’t it be a compliment about the tribes unconquerable, triumphant nature?”

    “Well,” she replied viciously (there is no other word for her tone), “How would you like having some group from a protestant university call themselves “The Mormons,” or the “Lorie Davis’s”?

    “Great!” I replied. “Flattering! Unless they were lousy athletes.”

    “You have no sensitivity!” She retorted angrily.
    So go figure.

  2. So many interesting tidbits in this post!

    But sorry, even though I like Indian food, I don’t like milk chocolate and I don’t like spicy with my chocolate. You’re on your own this time.

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