at Wed, 22 Mar 2006 15:05:07 GMT in <1143039907.162844.269080
@t31g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>, wrote :

....
>Once again, as an American, I am embarrassed at our food supply, which
>we contaminate with artificial additives, dyes, pesticides,
>emulsifiers, etc. Not to mention our produce, which is tasteless and
>nutrient-deficient because it is grown with excessive fertilizers on
>barren land, with pesticides.
>
>You want gourmet chocolate? Get it from Europe, and make sure it is
>hand-made.

Be careful about making generalisations! Remember, the bulk of the Euro
food supply is produced in the same way (with commensurate same loss of
nutritional value and taste) as the U.S. supply. And in both places, it's
equally possible to get good-quality food of high nutritional value that
hasn't been overprocessed. The bottom line in both places is exactly
that...the bottom line. In other words, if you want quality, you have to
PAY for quality. You can't expect high-quality food to be as low-priced as
commodity grade, although it will usually be within reason as long as you
don't look mostly for luxury foods (e.g. high-quality beef tenderloin is
going to be extremely expensive but a high-quality carrot won't)

Same thing applies with chocolate. In Europe, most of the chocolate sold is
of comparable quality to the commodity brands (Hershey's, M&M/Mars) you
find in the USA, and the only reason the commodity brands you see here are
American is for the same reason the commodity brands in Europe are European
- the costs of exporting and tariffs make it unprofitable to sell such
products overseas. A commodity brand is usually built around low price and
hence high costs can't be tolerated. Nestle and Cadbury are crossover
brands, mostly because they have a presence and facilities in the USA (or
licensing arrangements) so they can circumvent export costs.

And in the USA, there are plenty of top-grade chocolate brands (Guittard,
Scharffen Berger, Dagoba, etc.), and an even longer list of top-grade
chocolatiers. In fact, one chocolatier in the USA (Theo Chocolates) has
been consistently better than even the best chocolates I've had in Europe.
Absolutely world-class stuff. And as a side benefit they make their own
chocolate bean-to-bar and use all organic ingredients.

--
Alex Rast

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