A Chocolate Lover's Blog

A Chocolate Lover's Blog

Now that Halloween has passed and all the trick or treating candies awaits to be eaten, i try to hide a number of them before reaching the tiny mouth of my daughter. I am just thinking about a time when having so many candies was just a luxury. Growing up in India, with Halloween virtually unheard of in the late eighties and early nineties. My relationship with chocolates and candies were much

different than the current times. The first thing that used to come to my mind by the word chocolate was the classic Dairy Milk chocolate bar. It was the most prized chocolate for me at that time. A small bar would cost about Rupees 10 and i remember saving every Rupee i can to just buy this bar. Even buying that would usually mean sharing with my older sister, which i was not particularly happy but had to do it anyway. But we loved it, every bite of it was so cherished. There was a small disappointment and craving each time we complete a bar. Those were the absolutely relishing moments of my childhood that i still remember and inspite of having a boxful of candies and chocolates now, i never can get the satisfaction or the joy of eating those chocolate bars again. Sometimes guests to our home would bring them, one of my uncle used to bring me a white chocolate bar or a box of Gems (Indian version of M&Ms) which were a delight to have.
My first stint with foreign chocolates came when my dad moved to UAE for work. Each vacation that he would come, he used to dump a big bagful of chocolates from around the world. The Diary Milk bars from UK, the Toblerone bars from Swiss or Hershey's from the US tasted divine. And from then on, my love for chocolates slowly was turning to addiction.
There is this unspoken tradition in the family, we end most of our meals with something sweet to eat. Initially it was mostly Indian milk sweets or Laddu's or Badushah's, with my grandma being an expert in making them, they were mostly home made. On days when we run out of the sweets, i remember our quickest solution for dessert was sliced bananas laced with sugar. Such was our love for something sweet after each meal. But in the coming years, that sweet would eventually become chocolates. Suddenly the chocolates changed from rarity to plenty. We started buying more of them and consuming more of them. Chocolate flavored cakes, cookies, ice cream. Chocolate became one of my most favorite flavors. And still to this day, you can always find some form of chocolate available at all times in my home. Though my chocolate eating has become more and more restricted considering the health factor. For me unwinding at the end of day would mostly mean on indulging in a piece of chocolate. And while i know both me and my daughter can never have all those treats from Halloween, i know one thing that i have just passed the love for chocolates to the next generation and i hope they have a wise relationship with this sweet delight.