Today’s chocoholics are more demanding than ever before. There was a time, perhaps half a century ago, when “chocolate” meant “chocolate.” As our parents and/or grandparents skipped home from school, they contented themselves with plain Hershey or Snickers Bars. They didn’t give any thought to the quality of their chocolate, its regional origin, or its physical attractiveness. They didn’t care about cacao percentages or exotic flavorings. Unless they happened to be in the culinary field, neither did their parents. In that simpler era, all that most people considered was whether or not their chocolate tasted sweet, good, and at least slightly chocolaty.
It doesn’t take a cocoa connoisseur to see those days are far behind us. With dark chocolate now labeled a “health food,” it seems like new purveyors of handcrafted artisan chocolate materialize every day. In an effort to keep up with trends, retain old customers and attract new ones, old-standby chocolate makers such as Hershey have released lines of upmarket chocolates, often quite successfully.
On a recent trip to CVS, I noticed that old standby chocolatiers Whitman’s/Russell Stover, best known for their holiday chocolate collections, have gotten in on the act. While perusing the already center stage Valentine’s Day candies, I picked up Whitman’s “Soho” collection. I’d seen a similar collection the year before. I’d passed it by, less than eager to spend $5.00 on a 6-piece selection of drugstore chocolates, but my curiosity won out this time.
