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06/04/2002 Entry: "Sugar vs. Taste, Round One, Fight!"

... okay, this promises to be a totally random entry.

Have you ever noticed how cheap and/or poorly-made desserts taste more like sugar than anything else?

I first noticed this at a local dessert cafe' in Indianapolis, land of the Indy 500, the pointless dessert cafe' and the occasional raccoon. You would think that this cafe', being so upscale and specializing in five kabillion kinds of dessert items, would have rich desserts, but it didn't. They were... well, poor. The chocolate cake tasted like sugar first and chocolate second, a pale pitiful weak version of chocolate lost in all that bland sweet, instead of having a rich powerful chocolate taste. Every dessert I ever tried there was the same -- lemon, strawberry, caramel, vanilla, all imprisoned behind that vague white sugar wall like political dissidents. Political dissidents of taste.
I wonder if that particular failing had anything to do with the fact that said dessert cafe' changed hands three times while we were living there and ended up having to put in a dinner menu to survive? No one ever learned. Nothing ever changed. Maybe they thought Midwesterners weren't sophisticated enough to know the difference. Maybe they themselves didn't actually know the difference, figuring that sweet=desserty and desserty=sweet, QED, end of equation. Sad, sad thought.

I suppose that refined sugar is cheaper and easier to get and store than chocolate or the best vanilla or fresh seasonal fruit. I suppose that a lot of Americans would be fooled by it, or would at the very least never think there was anything different to try. We're raised eating 'chocolate' bars that are closer to wax than chocolate and cookies that contain more chemicals than taste, after all. But that, my friends, is a rant for a different time.

Replies: add your comment: currently 7 comments

Hmmm..

I wonder if that's why I prefer English chocolate and sweets over ours, big time.

They just plain taste better, but mayhaps that's why. Sweet != Sugar. Fresh fruit is technically sweet, but it ain't sugary.

Besides, in France, isn't cheese considered a dessert? It's not sweet, but it is desserty.

Posted by Felicity @ 06/04/2002 03:50 PM EST

Hmmm....curious. There are places that do things like this, yes, and they prolly do hope/think no one will notice. Well, people DO. It's just that this is not always pointed out publically. And besides, even if you omplained to them, do you think they'd care or do soemthing about it? Prolly not.
All they care is saving their own money, and taking yours, of course. Some peoplejust don't care about quality....

This reminds me of an Outlaw Star episode where there was a mind-controlling sentient plant that was...making people eat this mediocre ice cream...It's true! And hordes of people kept eating it, and they didn't know why, because it wasn't that good. (My favorite lines:
Gene: As long as you're not gonna make me eat crappy ice cream!
Jim: Why would you eat crappy ice cream??)

Posted by Wolf @ 06/04/2002 04:45 PM EST

Y'know, yeah, American chocolate bars *do* taste different. A lot sweeter, I find. And kinda salty. British chocolate is great. Ever had Giant Smarties? They're like American Smarties, but the size of quarters. I go through bags of 'em, they're so good. And the chocolate of each even varies in flavour - for example, the orange Giant Smarties actually taste like orange chocolate. YUM!

Nothing beats the good old Canadian Coffee Crisp, though. Somewhere out there somebody once looked at a chocolate bar and said, "Do you know what this chocolate bar needs? A good shot of caffeine!"

Posted by Lex @ 06/05/2002 02:05 PM EST

Why in the world would a mindcontrolling sentient plant make people eat crappy ice cream?

Posted by Nathan @ 06/05/2002 04:59 PM EST

I don't know. I flushed that episode out of my mind as quickly as possible. It was.. silly.

Posted by Felicity @ 06/05/2002 05:47 PM EST

Desserts are odd things because you never know what people like. For example, in my opinion, the very best piece of pumpkin pie you ever ate was not that much better than the very worst piece of pumpkin pie you ever ate. As for me, give me a piece of good old sour lemon pie with just a touch of sweetness. Dang! Now I'll have to go to the bakery!

Posted by Father Moon @ 06/05/2002 07:22 PM EST

This blog reminds me of my all time favourite dessert. I went to a craft show in Sydney, NS and there was a farm represented that sold goats milk and cheese. They had this goat's milk cheesecake. Chocolate. Man.. That was some cheesecake. It was so chocolatey, it was incredible. Not very sweet, kinda sourish in fact, but absolutely incredible. NOw if I could find that recipe....

Posted by Sheerlyevil @ 06/08/2002 10:37 PM EST