Corporate America Is Conspiring to Keep Your Chocolate Shitty(splinternews.com)
splinternews.com
Corporate America Is Conspiring to Keep Your Chocolate Shitty
https://splinternews.com/corporate-america-is-conspiring-to-keep-your-chocolate-1825514264
41 comments
The whole problem is that in the US chocolate goes through a huge transport chain instead of being made and sold by local chocolatiers.
If you have to go through a supply chain, you value stability and not melting more than you value taste.
If you have to go through a supply chain, you value stability and not melting more than you value taste.
Nope, I don't buy it. I can get Ritter Sport, Kinder Eggs, and other imported Chocolates from my grocery stores that taste just like they do in Europe. That chocolate was shipped over the atlantic in addition to taking the same transport routes as Hershey's does. Conclusion: Hershey's just sucks.
Not really true. American chocolate is an acquired taste, but it's supposed to taste like that. Companies deliberately add butyric acid to make it taste like Americans expect.
A lot of people don't like it. A lot of people do.
A lot of people don't like it. A lot of people do.
I was recently in London and decided to try a non-US KitKat as there had recently been a ruckus on reddit about how much better they were supposed to be.
It tasted like a chocolate-covered cracker. Nothing wrong with that, but chocolate covered crackers are a crowded space in the confections market and without the "malted milk" taste, which I suppose must come from the butyric acid, I found the non-US KitKat to be a completely uninspired contender. That taste is the thing that makes KitKat bars unique and exciting to me.
To each their own, but I hope the one-sided nature of the media frenzy (US BAD! FOREIGN GOOD!) doesn't end in the mediocritization of a wonderful candy bar.
It tasted like a chocolate-covered cracker. Nothing wrong with that, but chocolate covered crackers are a crowded space in the confections market and without the "malted milk" taste, which I suppose must come from the butyric acid, I found the non-US KitKat to be a completely uninspired contender. That taste is the thing that makes KitKat bars unique and exciting to me.
To each their own, but I hope the one-sided nature of the media frenzy (US BAD! FOREIGN GOOD!) doesn't end in the mediocritization of a wonderful candy bar.
That's like saying American beer is an acquired taste. Maybe so, but the bottom line is it's still a shitty imitation of the real thing. Hershey's is mealy, flavorless, sugary (high fructose corn syrupy?) garbage period.
The best milk chocolate I have ever tasted is the one they give you on Swiss Air flights. It is utterly perfect, just the right mix of sweetness and richness, without being cloying. And the snap when you bite it is a thing of singular beauty.
As a French expat in London, who's actually just back from the shop to get some chocolate : let me tell you how I burst into uncontrollable laughter when I clicked through the link, and understood by the end of the first paragraph that the author's point of reference was going to be "superior British chocolate". Followed by a long love letter to Cadbury's.
In distressing disbelief, I glanced at the URL looking for theonion.com, before collecting myself.
This is a photo of the chocolate aisle in an average Parisian supermarket:
https://imgur.com/a/s3I2o7g
It was sent to me the other day as a cheeky taunt, by my brother who lives there and asked if I needed anything. Of course I do.
You can see here at least 7 different varieties of exquisite, melting praline chocolate. Fine, pure darks of varying strength. The usual pistachio, roasted almond, rice, hazelnut, vanilla, mint, and the more creative (and let's face it : less authentic) pear, apricot, citrus, macaron, crème brûlée (!), raspberry, blueberry, even grapefruit !
I'll never forget the shock when I first moved to the UK, browsing through the aisles and naively looking for my standard French/Belgian/Swiss fare of dark chocolate with roasted almonds, hazelnut, or rice.
I found nothing of the sort, instead on offer was potentially very fine chocolate laced with Wasabi, of all things ! Wasabi, I repeated in horror, taking a snapshot to immediately report the outrage back home. And chilli, yes of course chilli : the ubiquitous alibi in British cuisine, akin to gratuitous violence in action movies. The favourite lazy fix of bland meals that otherwise wouldn't stand on their own feet. A smokescreen of burnt tastebuds to hide behind. A pain that I'm aware (but still to this day can't understand why) many people enjoy inflicting unto themselves.
I suppose this sinking feeling of mixed embarrassment, pity and smug sympathy I had reading the article, must be similar to the one British or American expats in France experience the first time they tune into the radio and hear the French try, and fail hard, at rock'n'roll or hip-hop.
To each their strengths. The Swiss and Belgians are the unrivalled masters of chocolate, and the French at least worthy connoisseurs of the art.
Now, I can't even begin to imagine how American chocolate tastes, having just witnessed someone actually put British Cadbury's at the apex of cocoa achievement.
In distressing disbelief, I glanced at the URL looking for theonion.com, before collecting myself.
This is a photo of the chocolate aisle in an average Parisian supermarket:
https://imgur.com/a/s3I2o7g
It was sent to me the other day as a cheeky taunt, by my brother who lives there and asked if I needed anything. Of course I do.
You can see here at least 7 different varieties of exquisite, melting praline chocolate. Fine, pure darks of varying strength. The usual pistachio, roasted almond, rice, hazelnut, vanilla, mint, and the more creative (and let's face it : less authentic) pear, apricot, citrus, macaron, crème brûlée (!), raspberry, blueberry, even grapefruit !
I'll never forget the shock when I first moved to the UK, browsing through the aisles and naively looking for my standard French/Belgian/Swiss fare of dark chocolate with roasted almonds, hazelnut, or rice.
I found nothing of the sort, instead on offer was potentially very fine chocolate laced with Wasabi, of all things ! Wasabi, I repeated in horror, taking a snapshot to immediately report the outrage back home. And chilli, yes of course chilli : the ubiquitous alibi in British cuisine, akin to gratuitous violence in action movies. The favourite lazy fix of bland meals that otherwise wouldn't stand on their own feet. A smokescreen of burnt tastebuds to hide behind. A pain that I'm aware (but still to this day can't understand why) many people enjoy inflicting unto themselves.
I suppose this sinking feeling of mixed embarrassment, pity and smug sympathy I had reading the article, must be similar to the one British or American expats in France experience the first time they tune into the radio and hear the French try, and fail hard, at rock'n'roll or hip-hop.
To each their strengths. The Swiss and Belgians are the unrivalled masters of chocolate, and the French at least worthy connoisseurs of the art.
Now, I can't even begin to imagine how American chocolate tastes, having just witnessed someone actually put British Cadbury's at the apex of cocoa achievement.
"how American chocolate tastes" - I believe that I recognise most of the brands in your picture, and I can buy them at Wal-Mart. IOW, we can get it here if we want, I suppose.
Sounds cool. If only you could get such a selection with say, crisps. I always found french supermarkets etc to be lacking in many exciting flavours and choices overall
Talk all you want about taste preferences, but just like we have restrictions on what you can call "chicken wings" and "Champagne" (as compared to "chicken wyngz" and "sparkling wine"), so too should there be restrictions on what you can call chocolate.
You can still have your American Hershey bar, it's just not chocolate, it's candy. It's too bad the Swiss or whoever didn't secure "chocolate" like France did for champagne.
You can still have your American Hershey bar, it's just not chocolate, it's candy. It's too bad the Swiss or whoever didn't secure "chocolate" like France did for champagne.
Except the Swiss didnt invent chocolate. South Americans did.
The best chocolate I ever had was from a small chocolatier in a tiny one room building in Elm Springs, Arkansas. He had been a Christian missionary in eastern Africa, and ended up helping to build and develop cacao farming there.
He came back to the states and started ordering beans from the farms he helped start and making bean to bar chocolate here.
The point is that big factory Chocolate is a different thing entirely. Cadbury, Hershey's, it is all shit.
He came back to the states and started ordering beans from the farms he helped start and making bean to bar chocolate here.
The point is that big factory Chocolate is a different thing entirely. Cadbury, Hershey's, it is all shit.
Ritter-Sport FTW! I grew up not too far from the factory and luckily now I can buy it in every super market in the US.
Here is often what is found in candies and cookies nowadays.
* High fructose corn syrup glycemic index 100 vs normal sugar glycemic index 70. The higher the glycemic index the sweeter the product tastes. High fructose corn sugar is a biproduct from subsidized corn production. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose
* Palm oil(Cancergenic) https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/press/news/160503-0. Palm oil is cheap so manufacturers use it everywhere but it is cancergenic.
The next time you are in the supermaket, twist the label and read the contents. You will be surprised how hard its to find good products. When I surved the local online super market store only about 3 candys out of 100 had ok content ie not High fructose corn syrup or Palm oil.
* High fructose corn syrup glycemic index 100 vs normal sugar glycemic index 70. The higher the glycemic index the sweeter the product tastes. High fructose corn sugar is a biproduct from subsidized corn production. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose
* Palm oil(Cancergenic) https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/press/news/160503-0. Palm oil is cheap so manufacturers use it everywhere but it is cancergenic.
The next time you are in the supermaket, twist the label and read the contents. You will be surprised how hard its to find good products. When I surved the local online super market store only about 3 candys out of 100 had ok content ie not High fructose corn syrup or Palm oil.
> High fructose corn syrup glycemic index 100 vs normal sugar glycemic index 70
This is just plain false. Fructose has a glycemic index of 25 (1/4 that of glucose), hence HFCS-55 (55% fructose, 45% glucose) has a lower glycemic index at 58 than "normal sugar" (which is 50-50 fructose-glucose) at 65.
> The higher the glycemic index the sweeter the product tastes
Glycemic index has nothing to do with sweetness. Fructose is twice as sweet as glucose with a quarter of the glycemic index; aspartame is 200x as sweet with basically 0 GI.
Candy or chocolate made with sucrose rather than corn syrup tastes different (and I would agree, better), but don't delude yourself that it is in any way better for your health.
This is just plain false. Fructose has a glycemic index of 25 (1/4 that of glucose), hence HFCS-55 (55% fructose, 45% glucose) has a lower glycemic index at 58 than "normal sugar" (which is 50-50 fructose-glucose) at 65.
> The higher the glycemic index the sweeter the product tastes
Glycemic index has nothing to do with sweetness. Fructose is twice as sweet as glucose with a quarter of the glycemic index; aspartame is 200x as sweet with basically 0 GI.
Candy or chocolate made with sucrose rather than corn syrup tastes different (and I would agree, better), but don't delude yourself that it is in any way better for your health.
"Your Oreos are too sweet and your Chips Ahoy are too dry; the offerings at your local CVS are no good. You have been lied to. These candies do not suffice as guilty pleasures, and you did not choose them freely. You chose them under the duress of false consciousness. Perhaps Mondelez realizes that the sweet taste of Proper Cadbury would awaken in American consumers the knowledge that capitalism doesn’t provide everyone those ideals of choice and excellence, but merely a veneer of freedom and indulgence. Hershey’s sued the major importers of British Cadbury not just because it wanted to continue selling substandard chocolate to the masses, but because it wants to maintain the lie that Americans are empowered by individualistic capitalism to choose whatever chocolate they want, when in fact it crushes their taste buds to the point that they cannot even imagine a better, sweeter world."
People might have different tastes.
Hershey's lawsuit against Cadbury was due to intellectual property rights being violated.
Please stop this communist nonsense.
People might have different tastes.
Hershey's lawsuit against Cadbury was due to intellectual property rights being violated.
Please stop this communist nonsense.
This is really an incredible kind of communism. Corporate America makes bad chocolate, which proves that capitalism is a lie, so buy corporate British chocolate.
Does this really belong on the front page of HN (or HN at all)? It's a diatribe about how one guy likes UK chocolate more than US chocolate. Super curious how it wound up on the front page too.
Downvote and move on then, brah
You can't downvote submissions. Also curious that an account with 1 karma point is protesting someone pointing out that this doesn't belong here.
You can flag submissions.
Yes, you can, and I did. But that's not what he suggested. Interesting that my comment itself is now flagged too. My guess is bot accounts.
I think a comment is also an appropriate response. For reference, see your response.
Bringing up cadbury as the gold standard tells more about her bad taste in chocolate than any inherent flaws of capitalism.
Even at walmart you can get a ghirardelli dark, or a lindt 90%. Cadbury--even UK cadbury--is a chunk of sugared grease by comparison.
https://www.cadbury.co.uk/products/cadbury-dairy-milk-11294
Even at walmart you can get a ghirardelli dark, or a lindt 90%. Cadbury--even UK cadbury--is a chunk of sugared grease by comparison.
https://www.cadbury.co.uk/products/cadbury-dairy-milk-11294
Everyone has their personal preferences. But you're comparing a milk chocolate with very dark chocoloate. Cadbury bournville is the dark variety, but I bet its not close to 90%. So if you like 90% chocolate, sure you will hate dairy milk. As far as milk chocolate goes though, cadbury is one of the best IMO. Usually people are split between dove/galaxy and dairy milk (as far as mass produced chocolate goes)
She wasn't just talking chocolate. She was getting into economics.
Brought up the dark chocolate because it is the more costly product to manufacture. Cocoa solids and cocoa butter are expensive. Sugar and vegetable oil aren't. If this is a corporate ploy to acclimate people to trash chocolate for profits, she was already on trash chocolate. But even in the low-rent grocers, the premium product is available. Doesn't jive with her thesis.
Brought up the dark chocolate because it is the more costly product to manufacture. Cocoa solids and cocoa butter are expensive. Sugar and vegetable oil aren't. If this is a corporate ploy to acclimate people to trash chocolate for profits, she was already on trash chocolate. But even in the low-rent grocers, the premium product is available. Doesn't jive with her thesis.
I agree in part. But why did she say "is a chunk of sugared grease by comparison". Seems like that clearly shows she was comparing the two in taste as well...
"sugared grease" was from me, not the author.
I wrote that because cadbury has gotten heat in the past for substituting vegetable fats for cocoa butter, and the #2 ingredient in her favorite is sugar. Cocoa products make their first appearance at #3: https://www.cadbury.co.uk/products/cadbury-dairy-milk-11294
Compare with the Lindt 90%: https://www.lindtusa.com/wcsstore/LindtCatalogAssetStore/Att...
I wrote that because cadbury has gotten heat in the past for substituting vegetable fats for cocoa butter, and the #2 ingredient in her favorite is sugar. Cocoa products make their first appearance at #3: https://www.cadbury.co.uk/products/cadbury-dairy-milk-11294
Compare with the Lindt 90%: https://www.lindtusa.com/wcsstore/LindtCatalogAssetStore/Att...
I assumed the "she" was you as I hadn't read the article yet. So I was referring to you in my comment. As for the comparisons with Lindt 90%, just stop. Choose a lindt product that's a similar % to dairy milk. Here you go: https://www.lindtusa.com/wcsstore/LindtStorefrontAssetStore/...
If you read the article, her thesis is that we are under an illusion of consumer choice. That we have several dark and milk varieties of differing qualities and compositions undermines that thesis. Pedantic reminders of apples-to-apples are unwarranted.
From the HN guidelines:
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
From the HN guidelines:
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
I don't disagree with your comment here. Next time lead with a comment like this that gets to what you're trying to say. If you feel I was being pedantic, then you've missed my points
Flake is the only decent chocolate any more and I suspect it’s cause mondelez/kraft couldn’t make the texture work with their new formula. Try it you’ll see what I mean!
Flake was always good though. I remember liking Spira and Twirl as well. I don't really eat chocolate much any more though, but if/when I do - will make sure to compare flake to non flake
Yeah twirl has gone down the greasy route lately ...
As a British adult, I didn't often eat Cadbury's, but I had it occasionally -- people would bring it to work or whatever.
Then I left Britain, and didn't eat any for about two years. Then it tasted like sugared grease.
It still seems like an upgrade from Hershey's ;-)
Then I left Britain, and didn't eat any for about two years. Then it tasted like sugared grease.
It still seems like an upgrade from Hershey's ;-)
By the way, the connection between Hershey's and Cadbury goes way back to the founding days. There's a fascinating book called "Chocolate Wars" by Deborah Cadbury that chronicles that time.