When it comes to a box of chocolates, this lady is a tramp
She gets too hungry for dinner at eight. She still eats Smarties, with fingers, no plate. She never bothers with dark chocolate she’d hate. That’s why the lady is a tramp.
That lady, of course, would be me. As we learn 70 per cent cacao bars boost mood, ease stress and even promote better brainpower, I’m still scrunching up my face at the prospect of so much as a square on my tongue.
I’ve tried down the years to acquire a fondness for the dark stuff as even I concede that savouring a postprandial single estate chocolate from Haiti is more sophisticated than cramming a Double Decker into my mouth at the bus stop. But I just can’t. Like so many other grown-up things – fennel, beef carpaccio, crème anglaise, red wine – it makes me flinch in horror. They all reawaken my inner child, refusing to consume anything with “bits” in it.
Taste is much more than just flavour, texture or appearance; there’s a large psychological element, too. My daughter’s toddler party trick was eating anchovies, but, by the age of six, she joined her friends who would only countenance the sort of pale, bland mush ladled out in hospitals.
As we grow up and experience peer pressure, we try to fit in. We (usually) recognise sweet flavours are childish and gravitate towards the more mature, complex end of the spectrum.
For my part, my drinking followed the standard curve: sweet cider with blackcurrant at university, sweet Spanish wine in my first job, gin and tonic with my first major relationship. Then came the chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, pinot grigio years. Now I’m a flinty white burgundy girl, especially if someone else is paying. Food-wise, I will endeavour to tackle, with good grace, anything cooked by friends. But when it comes to comfort-eating, it’s cheapo confectionery all the way.
Or, as Frank Sinatra almost put it: She’ll have no crap games with Sharpies and worse
When they serve petit fours she’s learned not to curse
She’s got a Wispa hid deep in her purse – that’s why the lady is a tramp.