Sunday blogging: chocolate
As I mentioned a while ago, I’m hypoglycemic, and can’t tolerate foods with added sugar. I’m also very fond of chocolate. This as of itself can be a problem, since most chocolates contain sugar, but, to add to the complications, I’m also allergic to soy. (Soy, by the way, is one of the most common food allergies, even when you wouldn’t realize it, with all the ads promoting soy foods and soy-enriched cosmetics, but I digress). A soy allergy adds to the difficulty of finding good sugarless chocolate because soy lecithin is used as an emulsifier in processing chocolate.

For a long time my only source of chocolate-craving satisfaction was 1 small scoop of Edy’s chocolate fudge sugar free eice cream. No more than one small scoop, since now their no-sugar ice creams are sweetened with Splenda, and Splenda is 1/2 sugar. While the research apparently says Splenda has no effect or reduced effect on blood glucose control or insulin levels, the fact remains that I don’t tolerate a serving larger than 1 scoop. Aside from Edy’s, no chocolate for me. No hot chocolate in winter. No chocolate Easter bunny.

I’ve spent years searching for good chocolate. I’m particularly fond of bittersweet dark chocolate.

I’ve tried every brand of chocolate from Whitmans’ to Russel Stover and back, and my bittersweet dark chocolate taste buds were still unsatisfied. Some tasted waxy, some stale, some left an aftertaste, some lacked the authentic flavor. All unsatisfactory.

Yesterday my research took me to Bon Appetit at the Princeton Shopping Center, owned and run by the excellent Mr. Lemmerling. Bon Appetit carries The King’s Cupboard no sugar added dark hot chocolate, at $9.59 for an 8oz tin, so I took that home to try. I also picked up two bars of Elite Repertoire No Added Sugar chocolate: milk chocolate with almonds, and bittersweet chocolate, at $2.25 each. I paid and went home to sample my purchases.

The King’s Cupbpard chocolate was very very rich, and had an authentic dark chocolate flavor. I found out you only need one teaspoon for an 8oz cup of hot milk. My purchase will last a long time. After my first cup of hot chocolate in years — very satisfying indeed — I drank a glass of water and cleared the tastebuds for the next sampling.

The Elite Repertoire Milk Chocolate With Almonds was very good, smooth, no aftertaste, and, while it wasn’t bittersweet dark, I felt I was on the right track. Drank some more water, waited a few minutes. Then I tried the Bittersweet bar.

One word: nirvana.

Thank you Mr. Lemmerling. My Bittersweet tastebuds are happy at last. My eyes filled with tears of Bittersweet joy and I had found the real-thing flavor of true goodness.

This morning, while I looked for internet sources in visitors to this site can purchase Elite chocolate, I found out that Elite’s made in Nazareth, Israel, the headline was most allarming: Legendary chocolate factory comes to bittersweet end. I asume Elite will continue to manufacture their excellent products.

In the meantime, I’ll have two things to do: stock up on more chocolate bars, and consult with Mr. Lemmerling on Elite news.