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Re: [OM] OT: Culinary Rant

Subject: Re: [OM] OT: Culinary Rant
From: "philippe.amard" <philippe.amard@xxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 18:59:15 +0100
Chris, ice and chocolate don't mix - except in Switzerland, perhaps, but for other reasons.
So this shop ranks high in my books :-)

Belgium is another place, with milder temps, and worth considering due to the beers too.

Amities
Philippe, a chocolate addict since immemorial times :-)


Le 20 janv. 15 à 16:19, Chris Trask a écrit :

While participating in our Tempe to Tucson bike journey this past weekend, I had an encounter with American culture that still has me in disbelief. We had finished repairing the homeless fellows bike at the Picacho Peak rest stop, and I felt a need for chocolate ice cream. So, I wandered into the Dairy Queen and stood in line for what seemed to be an eternity, thinking of nothing but enjoying cold, smooth chocolate ice cream. It finally came my turn, and I asked for a chocolate ice cream cone.

"You want a cone dipped in chocolate?"

"No, I want a cone of chocolate ice cream."

"You mean an ice cream cone dipped in chocolate?"

"No, I want a cone of chocolate ice cream, NOT a cone of ice cream dipped in chocolate."

"We don't have chocolate ice cream."

I left, my mind reeling in a culinary rant that reached back through the centuries.

When the Spanish encountered the Aztecs in the 16th century, they noticed that the royalty had a beverage that consisted of cocoa and green chilis. Europeans at this point were on the verge of a major change in food. Potatoes, tomatoes, citrus, and other food items were unknown in Europe, but were soon to be found everywhere. Among them was cocoa. It took almost a century before the Europeans took basic cocoa and devised chocolate. It became the rage amongst the aristocracies.

In the second world war, American soldiers were quickly associated with Hershey bars, as they were widely handed out to children everywhere as the 3rd US Army and other units advanced through France and Germany. It became established as a form of diplomacy, the chocolate being a valuable source of relief for thousands who were impoverished by the war.

During the Berlin Wall crisis in the early 1960s, anything and everything that could fly was carrying cargo into Berlin. Amongst those items were sacks of small packages attached to small, crude parachutes. When on approach to Templehoff and other airfields, aircrews would open the sacks and empty them through the rear doors, and these small packages would float to the ground where they were eagerly snapped up by children. Among the items in those packages were Hershey bars. I was living beneath all of that airlift in France, and I may have made some of those packages as a school exercise where we assembled them one at a time with soap, toothpaste, and numerous other items. Despite their small size and seemingly small value, they brought relief to children and others who were being held prisoners at the height of the Cold War. Chocolate was there.

So here I am, in a daze as I exit America's first and foremost ice cream franchise, empty-handed because Dairy Queen does not have chocolate ice cream. And I'm just a scant couple of hundred miles north of Mexico, where it all began a mere six centuries ago.

It's downright un-American. They probably have chocolate ice cream in North Korea.

The next day I encountered an independent espresso shop at our rest stop at Casa Grande. Espresso, coffee, and 12 flavours of Dreyer's ice cream. Three of those were chocolate. I could hardly wait as the owner scooped out two generous balls of simple chocolate ice cream. I savoured every spoonful, and my faith in America was restored by way of an independent shop owner.

    Life is good.


Chris

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro
    - Hunter S. Thompson
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