I’m reading a book about the history of chocolate. The opening paragraph gives an extract from the film ”Chocolat”, as follows : “In my dreams I gorge on chocolate (don’t we all, honey). I roll in chocolates (Oh?!) and their texture is not brittle but soft as flesh, like a thousand little mouths on my body, devouring me in fluttering small bites. (You’re losing me). To die beneath their tender gluttony is the culmination of every temptation I have known”. Good Lord!
The book “Bitter Chocolate” goes on to trace the history of chocolate from it’s known beginnings as a delight in central America in the 1500’s, at a time when cocoa beans were revered as currency, in the same way we value gold and silver. And they were very casual about their gold and silver, the way we might be about chocolate.
It seems there was always a secret to it’s delights, depending on who you comission to investigate it for you. Mind altering anti depressant chemicals, love drug, antioxidant and cancer inhibitor. It seems to triple as food, drink and cure-all. No mention of cellulite or diabetes. Yahoo.
As an anti depressant, chocolate goes a long way to doing my brain in. Valium, I’m sure, would rate a poor second.
When the housework is done and the occupants asleep, I boil the kettle to steal another half hour for my private thoughts. But there is nothing to shatter the serenity of the sleeping masses like the hysteria of the mother when she goes to the pantry to find all is not as she left it, and the screams can be heard for miles .... and miles ... and miles..
“WHOOOOOO TOOOOOK MYYYYY LAAAAAAST CHOCOLATTTTTTE?”
