Ah, How Sweet It Is!

By Michael Demarest

No matter the price, millions need their daily chocolate fix

Dear Ann Landers:

I am an otherwise normal (I think!) young married woman except I can't seem to get enough chocolate. I blow the housekeeping money on Godiva chocolate strawberry creams. I count the minutes till the weekly shipment of Teuscher champagne truffles arrives from Switzerland. I hide Tobler Extra-Bitter sweet around the house. Hershey's Kisses mean more to me than Harry's (he's my hubby). Sometimes I even dream Harry has been dipped in milk chocolate. When I can't get chocolate, I sweat and shake. Am I an ADDICT? Is there anything I can do???

Choc Nut

Dear Choc Nut:

Yes. So am I. No.

The letter is fictitious. So is the answer, although Ann Landers is, in fact, a chocolate addict. So much so that the columnist to the lovelorn must banish her stash to the next room during working hours. ("I wouldn't dare keep a box at my elbow.") Confesses Landers abjectly: "I am hooked on chocolate. I crave it, and nothing else will do."

So do millions of other Americans, for whom the product of the cacao bean is not so much a feast as a fix. Per capita consumption of chocolate in the U.S. last year was 9.1 Ibs.; some $3.4 billion was spent on chocolate products of all kinds. While Americans lag behind Austrians, Belgians, Norwegians, Germans and the league-leading Swiss, U.S. consumption of luxe chocolates (selling for up to $30 per Ib.) is growing steadily. From coast to coast, shamelessly fragrant new boutiques with names like Le Chocolat Elegant, Nutty Chocolatier and La Maison de Bon Bon are blooming.

The superchocolates they display are silky-smooth confections assembled from acmic ingredients: hand-picked beans from Sri Lanka or Venezuela, premium dairy products, fresh as well as dried fruits and nuts. Just the crucial "conching," or blending process, of the chocolate can take up to 72 hours a batch, vs. about nine for assembly-line chocolates. Ordinary bonbons are sprayed with chocolate, but chic chocs are hand-dipped to build an even quarter-inch-layer thickness. Another reason for their high cost is that they contain no artificial preservatives and can be stocked only in small quantities. Of Corne Toison d'Or chocolates, possibly Belgium's finest. Founder Marcel Jo seph Corne says, "They are to be bitten gently with the eyes closed." Perhaps. But true chocophiles mostly pursue their passion with eyes and wallets wide open. A sampler:

P:In March and October, a nine-day Chocolate Lover's Tour of Switzerland whisks aficionados around such top chocolatiers as Lindt, Suchard, Nestle and Tobler. Cost: $1,600, chocolates and one cathedral included.

P: Bimonthly Chocolate News, published by Milton Zelman and printed on brown, chocolate-scented paper, brings some 15,000 subscribers ($9.95 yearly) all the news of the chocolate world that's fit to eat, including chocolate tobacco and chocolate chili.

P: A four-day Chocolate Binge Weekend, attended by 150 chocophiles last February at Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, N.Y. ($183), featured chocolate treats ad nauseam, as well as counsel by Philadelphia Psychiatrist Roy Fitzgerald and his wife, Anthropologist Jennie Keith (sample subject: Does one eat chocolate before or after sex?).

P: Chocolate: The Consuming Passion (Workman; $4.95, paperback) has sold 140,000 copies by portraying the lighter side of chocaddiction with the animal cartoons and spoofery of bestselling Greeting Card Artist Sandra Boynton. A more nourishing volume is Maida Heatter's Book of Great Chocolate Desserts (Knopf; $15), with recipes for such esoterica as sour-cherry chocolate torte and French chocolate mint truffles.

In stores that cater to chocolate freaks, the bounty is endless and bewildering. Chocoscenti quibble as they nibble over the respective merits of, say, Switzerland's Bachmann, France's Debauve et Gallais and Belgium's Neuhaus. Some buy the immodest slogan of London's Charbonnel et Walker: "probably the best chocolates in the world." Passionate pilgrims trek all the way to 42 Cours Franklin Roosevelt, Lyon, in central France, to sample the exquisite specialites of Bernachon, which are sold nowhere else. Fans of Godiva, the Belgian firm that was acquired by the Campbell Soup Co. and now makes its chocolates in Reading, Pa., are unbudgeable votaries.

Among the most original and high-priced American entries are Harbor Sweets, a million-dollar-a-year enterprise in Salem, Mass. The Sweets line features a sailboat-shaped, chocolate-covered almond butter crunch with pecan spindrift washing her sides. It takes a trip to Long Grove, Ill., plus $85 to get Long Grove confectionery to whip up a 15-lb. chocolate gorilla. All-chocolate molded T shirts, ties and female torsos are available just about anywhere.

The yearning for chocolate is obviously more complex and deep-seated than, say, a yen for jelly beans. Says Tom Cottle, Boston psychologist and self-styled "Hershey emeritus": "The enjoyment of chocolate is a combination of childhood memories and adult pleasures." It may not be related to self-indulgence at all. As Anthropologist Keith argues, "Throughout history, giving someone something to eat has been a strategy of control. Chocolate is magic. Now when you give chocolate to someone, you want that someone in your power." If so, quite clearly the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. should beat their nuclear warheads into chocolate bars. May Switzerland rule the world! --By Michael Demarest. Reported by Frances Fiorino/New York and Laura Meyers/Los Angeles

With reporting by Frances Fiorino/New York, Laura Meyers/Los Angeles

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