By
Chef Thobeka Shangase
Whether it’s sweet rich, dark and
smooth, comforting and a source of pure pleasure? I am addicted to chocolate. Growing
up I didn't have a particularly close relationship with my mother, we may have
looked tremendously alike but we were two different women with an entire ocean
between us, when she wanted to teach me the ten ways on how to get a floor
clean and sparkly I wanted to hang out in my fathers office during one his
business meetings learning how to run a business. As worlds apart as we were
there was one thing that we both shared and enjoyed together unapologetically
and that was chocolate. My mother and I both loved chocolate and we ate bucket
loads of it, between us we must've eaten enough chocolate for half of the world’s
population.
My addiction to chocolate became very
apparent early on in my life, the day I grabbed a handful of gold chocolate
coins in my grubby little hands at age 7, I knew then without a doubt that this
was the only food I ever wanted to eat. My father also loved chocolate and
every time he visited Hyperama Supermarket he would come home with a bag of
chocolate truffles which he would divide between us equally, I was the first
one to scoff down all my truffles and then would launch daily and various missions
to steal my sibling’s truffles. It was during this time when I was first
introduced to chocolate covered Turkish delight truffles and ginger infused
Turkish delight bon-bons, the day I ate one was the day my life changed and my
chocolate addiction got its second wind. My obsession was in no way a secret,
chocolate was something I ate very openly, by the time I was 10 I could eat an
entire 777 chocolate bar in one bite. Every day at lunch I would buy two 777
bars or TV bars and I would eat them both in less than 60 seconds.
It was very common to find Beacon or
Cadbury chocolate wrappers under my pillow and under my mattress tucked in for
safe keeping for an emergency chocolate fix when I desperately needed one. I
came to be wise to the fact that I had to at all times, keep a secret stash of
chocolate in various hiding places for emergencies. One never knew when you’d
need to negotiate your escape to the playground; a chocolate bar would often
sweeten the deal and would allow me to make my siblings an offer they couldn't
refuse.
At 13, while enjoying another chocolate
bar I read the fine print behind the wrapper of my Cadbury Crunchie that stated
if I was not satisfied with my chocolate, Cadbury would replace my chocolate
for free. I had heard of such rumours and fables, of people getting boxes of
free chocolates after returning a defected chocolate. I had never had the luck
of coming across a deformed chocolate because I've never met a chocolate I
didn't want to eat, so I was left with no choice but to create a defected
chocolate. The first time I attempted to doctor the chocolate bar I failed
dismally, I didn't have the self control required to leave a chocolate bar half
eaten.
The second attempt was much more of a triumph, I had a plan this time, I
was going to buy two chocolate bars, I would eat half of one bar and then keep
it until it was spoilt and the other one was a reward for my self-restraint. I ate half of the chocolate bar and then I
sat with my sister’s eyebrow tweezers picking out the puffed rice, one by one
to achieve the hollow look I was aiming for. I stored the chocolate bar at the
bottom of my sisters shoe boxes, a risky move I know, when the chocolate bar
had reached the desired discolouration, I went out and bought a new chocolate
bar and I put the old chocolate bar in the new wrapper and then sent it of to
Cadbury. After months of waiting I didn't get the boxes and boxes of free
chocolate but I received three replacement chocolate bars and an apology letter
from Cadbury, a triumph! And not bad for a few weeks of work! I immediately set
to work on getting more free chocolates from Beacon and Nestle using the same
M.O, but after a while my mother started to suspect all the packages arriving
for me, 13 years old didn’t often receive mailed packages. She caught on to my scheme,
gave me 10 hard lashings across the bum and she confiscated my chocolates and
told me she would give them back to me after I had learned my lesson. I let a
few days pass and figured it was enough time to have learned a lesson but when
I asked for one of the chocolates, my mother told me they couldn't be found. It
later turned out that my mother had eaten the chocolates. I can’t say that I ever
really forgave my mother for this betrayal.
My addiction to chocolate came to
screeching halt when a busy body aunt dared to suggest to me when I was 14
years old that I should stop eating chocolate because she had read somewhere
that chocolate gives you pimples, well that was the day my mother threw out all
the chocolate bars in the house and placed all of us under chocolate quarantine
with strict restrictions imposed on all of us. She absolutely refused to buy
any chocolate as much I tried to convince her that chocolate was what kept my
teenage face pimple free. The next few years are what I refer to as the Dark
Years and it was during this time that chocolate took on the antithesis of
cold, hunger, teenage hormonal mood swings and growth spurts and was the consolation
prize for love betrayal by my mother. Chocolate became a prized possession and I
could only get my fix at school.
When once I used to gorge my face on
dark chocolate the likes of Bournville with my mother I was now being forced to
get my cocoa fix at the schools tuckshop. School tuckshops didn't have a
variety of chocolates on offer but milk chocolate was better then no chocolate,
so each afternoon I would stuff my bag with Aro Mint bars, Cadbury Lunch Bars
and Beacon Tempo chocolate bars, shipping illegal contraband to my secret
hiding place at home, I turned my younger sister into a chocolate mule and she
would help me move my illegal contraband by storing chocolates in her bra, the
chocolates would often be melted from being trapped in her heaving bosom for
hours but there was nothing better then a semi-melted Bar One chocolate bar eaten
in the darkness of our bedroom.
In my early twenties my chocolate addiction
knew no boundaries, I dated a man for six months purely because he worked at
the Beacon Chocolate Factory and he would bring me boxes and boxes of
chocolates. This man had a snaggle-tooth and sometimes his armpits smelt like
sour hot garbage juice, I never went out with him in public, none of my friends
knew him. I kept him hidden away in the dark as he kept me in full supply of
chocolates. It was during this time that I was re-introduced to an old
childhood favourite when Beacon launched their line of designer chocolates, the
Turkish delight filled chocolate slab. Such sweet heavenly pleasure, having it
in my mouth once again took me back to the days when I would sit on fathers lap
and we would eat the chocolate truffles he brought home for us. I could eat
boxes and boxes of them. The muesli filled slabs were a second favourite and I would
eat one everyday for breakfast.
My
addiction to chocolate has got worse, since I chose to give up premarital sex
i have found comfort and a source of Vitamin B in Lindt Strawberry Sensation
chocolate and Cadbury Hazelnut slabs, I could never face a plain Cadbury slab,
there seems to be no point to it, I buy two or three of these chocolates at a
time. A day without one never goes by. I no longer have a reason to eat food.
Chocolate is without a doubt addictive, the addictive element could be merely
in my subconscious feeling of being loved, when the chocolate melts in my mouth
it’s like a warm hug. I don't experience the same craving sensations from other
sweets, so it’s not the sugar I’m craving when I crave chocolate. My chocolate
cravings can’t be narrowed down to any traces of drugs, although chocolate
contains powerful chemicals such as phenylethylamine, similar to amphetamine, a
chemical which has similarities to marijuana. Chocolate does contain healthy
doses of caffeine. But I believe my addiction to chocolate has little to do
with chemicals, endorphins and opiates and everything to do with pleasure. The
sensation of my mouth full of melted chocolate gives me an exhilarating rush.
Chocolate releases a lack of inhibition
in me; I lose all my facilities and abandon all discretion when it comes to
talking about my love of chocolate. I shamelessly confess all my desires for
chocolate in manner of a telephone sex operator. The first time I placed a dark
chocolate truffle dripping with passion fruit curd and cognac I thought I had
died and gone to heaven, the only words that could leave my lips were “oh
god…oh god…oh my god…” I had to sit down and felt the urge to light a cigarette
afterwards.Chocolate is without a doubt the most perfect food in the world. It
slides, smears and drips on the body arousing a deep primal craving, when you
love something you want to touch it, taste it, lick it, smell it, have it
inside of you and all over you, this is how I feel about chocolate.
Chocolate is such a female obsession,
eating a chocolate arises the same feelings of falling in love, chocolate can't
be restrained or be minimal, it’s intrusive it loudly announces itself just
like love does. I'm always able to remember a quote I saw at the bottom of a
work diary long time ago, the writer of the quote is unknown but it read,
“Never trust anyone who leaves a bar of chocolate half eaten.” I have used this
saying as a measuring stick for friends, business partners and especially for
men, anyone who doesn't gobble up an entire chocolate in one go has too much
self control for my liking and not enough of an appetite. I'm a person who can
inhale an entire Kit Kat Family Value Pack in one sitting and when I met a
woman who confessed that she eats a slab of chocolate over a week, nibbling on
a few blocks every other day, I was overcome with a deep sense of mistrust and
my suspicions were proven to be true after it was discovered that she was having
sex with her friends man. Whether this was a coincidence, doesn't matter much to
me because people who can't shove an entire chocolate bar in their face are
calculating by nature, anyone who can eat half a chocolate bar and be satisfied
and it’s not due to physical illness, shows an unnatural sense of
self-restraint, rigid self-control and severe self -deprivation and that is
someone who can hurt you.
South Africa has seen its fair share of
mass produced, over processed chocolate, when Nestle Albany first released
their Albany Dark chocolate with the aim of hitching their star on the cocoa-
content- in –chocolate- wagon, the only thing they proved was that you can have
a high cocoa content but still have bad chocolate. Albany Dark chocolate was
dark, but it grainy, fatty and it left a film of fat on your tongue that needed
a hammer and chisel to remove, this was because of the poor quality of cocoa
butter that they used. The chocolate was utterly bitter and left a metal almost
tangy after taste, which showed an amateurish ability to balance ingredients;
they attempted to create a cheap dark chocolate by dumping an extra pound of
cocoa into the mixture and didn't use any good quality cocoa beans. The next
time I saw Albany Dark it had been morphed into a hybrid of dark and white
chocolate, an attempt to combat the sever bitterness I guess.
I'm filled with joy to see more grand cru and
gourmet chocolate in South Africa, although it has not entered the mass market,
in the last few years or so in Franshoek Cape Town, there’s been a crop of chocolate
specialist stores selling some high quality chocolate, these stores are mostly
owned by foreigners but South Africans are working in these kitchens and
hopefully in the years to come there will be more South African chocolatiers.
For now my dreams are filled with bars
of organic chilli chocolate, basil and lime, cardamom and smooth chocolate
ganache filled truffles sprinkled with bacon bits. I personally prefer
chocolate bars to ganache- filled chocolates, i can certainly pop plenty of those
tiny morsels into my mouth, but you can only eat two or three if you’re an
amatuer or four-five if you’re an expert eater like me, before you suffer from a
case of palate fatigue. Chocolate bars are the best because you can taste all
the minute flavours that make up the chocolate, they have a clean finish if
they are of good quality and most importantly with a chocolate bar I can scoff
down a frightening amount without picking up an injury.
