Chocoholics Evening

What an enjoyable evening we had at Knowl Hill Village Hall. The evening got off to a good start as we were given a snack size Cadbury’s Dairy Milk as we arrived. This certainly got the ‘sweetie’ taste buds going!

Alison Pink then proceeded to attempt to get our saliva buds working by giving us a quick résumé of the history of chocolate followed by some very interesting insights into the life and times of a chocolate taster – how does she stay so slim is a question I forgot to ask!

We were all amused by Alison’s stories, but when were we going to get our teeth into some chocolate? Eventually, Alison got us smelling various ingredients which go into milk chocolate and then we were all given a dinky container with a square of Galaxy. Can you taste the raisins in a bar of Galaxy? Some could and some couldn’t!

By the end of the evening we had tried 70% cocoa chocolate, more milk chocolate, minstrels, maltesers, M&Ms and white chocolate. Each container was given out with information about what is in the chocolate, what obscure ingredients are included in different types of chocolate sweets, what flavours we should be able to taste, and what each type of chocolate should feel like in one’s mouth. It’s amazing how little real cocoa is in anything except 70% dark chocolate and white chocolate is just flavoured lard! I certainly came away with a completely new perspective about chocolate eating!

At the end we were given a goody bag to take away. Alison had made some lovely little bags and mine is now going away with the Christmas decorations.

Also halfway through, Alison produced pairs of white cotton gloves which apparently the tasters wear. We all dutifully put on our gloves and just needed boaters to become a black and white minstrel troop! By the way, the gloves are brilliant as a base layer under riding gloves. I had warm hands during the cold weather thanks to the cotton gloves.

All in all, a very enjoyable and informative evening with the plus of acquiring another Christmas decoration and a pair of gloves.

Thanks a lot Alison for all your hard work and preparation beforehand and for making the evening so much fun.

Lesley Wells