Life-Changing Chocolate

There are moments in life that suddenly change your experience of it. I call them my “everything I know is wrong” moments. There you are, truckin’ along, doin’ your thing, and then booooof…life is different. Suddenly you see things with new eyes, you understand something differently, or maybe you even realize you’re in love.

From my own life these moments include hearing Elvis Costello sing Allison, my first visit to the Cloisters, and reading Madame Bovary. They also include eating porchetta in Florence, salmon in Scotland, and more recently the dark chocolate and bacon bar from Vosges Haut Chocolat.

Don’t get me wrong, I love chocolate, but if given the choice, I’d rather ruin myself with good bread dipped in sea salt and olive oil. I’ve sampled all kinds of sophisticated chocolates and retained my plebeian devotion to Cadbury’s Dairy Milk, until one afternoon I walked by the Vosges store on the Upper East Side and noticed the words “Bacon Chocolate” in beautiful lavender script on the side window. That was enough to lure me in and despite being cash poor I was easily seduced into paying $7.50 for a bar of Mo’s Dark Chocolate Bacon bar with applewood bacon, alderwood smoked salt, and 62% dark chocolate. It was worth every penny.

The chocolate itself is dense and smooth and has that perfect dark chocolate snap. It’s then punctuated with the salty, savory bits that interrupt the sweetness and create, dare I say, a medley of flavors. It’s a complex flavor experience that balances perfectly. I’m totally addicted. I suspect others might be too. 

Lindt now has a line of chocolate bars that seem to be influenced by the larger Vosges line of unusual salty/sweet combos such as indian curry and coconut, chicory coffee, and ancho and chipotle peppers. So far I’ve tried Lindt’s dark chocolate touch of sea salt, which pales in comparison to the bacon chocolate bar, but is still pretty darned good. The salt provides little breaks in the sweetness that really allow your taste buds to appreciate the chocolate and its bitter and sweet properties. Lindt’s is also $3.50 and available at the Key Foods around the corner.

And for more bacon chocolate madness, see this.