Blog a Day June: American Chocolate

Anybody who has lived out of the United States will tell you honestly. American Chocolate is really... ummm... shit.

I'm not a real chocolate aficionado, but I can quite happily put my hand on my heart and say that American Chocolate is really not very good. With this, I refer to the mass produced stuff. The Hershey Bars, the Reece's peanut butter cups, the Butter Fingers. The chocolate is grainy, overly sweet, leaves a funny taste in your mouth and yeah, it's just not very nice compared to chocolate from other parts of the world. Interestingly, there is an American chocolate stand in our local shopping centre. I'm not sure how they stay in business.



The British complain about Australian chocolate because there is some magic ingredient in there that helps it stop melting in Summer.

I like that in Australian supermarkets you can get a lot of Lindt branded chocolate. Lovely silky stuff - not grainy at all. Then there is the stuff you get at Aldi - which for the price is AMAZING. A friend who used to be a chocolate blogger put me on to this.



For the king of the mouth feel, Belgian Chocolate wins. It was worth it, when living in London, popping into Harrods every now and then for a couple of Leonidas choccies was bliss. The best known Belgian chocolate is the Guliyan seashells.



For the best of Australian Chocolate, you can't go past Haighs. Amazing stuff out of Adelaide. Their dark liqueur cherry truffles are just to die for. Expensive, but worth it - and I won a $70 voucher for the store in the last few weeks.



I have experienced good chocolate in America, but I found that in Boston, in an organic shop, hand made, expensive and just lovely.

We have similar here. Pana chocolate is something you can buy in health food shops here - it's raw, organic, vegan, dairy and gluten free - and amazingly, absolutely glorious (and a bit expensive)

http://www.panachocolate.com/


But I will stand by my statement that American mass produced chocolate is crap

There are plenty of other species out there that need visiting before you reach for a Hershey Bar. With far fewer preservatives and a better feel about them.