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Anyone else who doesn't care for dark chocolate?

sherribabee

By sherribabee
in Food Traditions & Culture

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sherribabee

sherribabee

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I can't get past the bitterness of it to even attempt to enjoy the flavor. I keep trying it (in hopes that I'll find some I may like (has worked with many other foods I thought I dind't like)), but no luck so far.

Anyone else?

Sherri A. Jackson
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bergerka

bergerka

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That's ok, I'll eat yours and you can have my white chocolate. How's that sound?

K

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And a vichyssoise and a cabbage and a crawfish claws.

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Jason Perlow

Jason Perlow

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I like dark chocolate but I can't handle it in large amounts. I prefer milk chocolate for desserts, and dark chocolate for candy.

Jason Perlow, Co-Founder eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters

Foodies who Review South Florida (Facebook) | offthebroiler.com - Food Blog (archived) | View my food photos on Instagram

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bilrus

bilrus

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The part of chocolate that I like the most is the creaminess. I don't get that with really dark bitter chocolate.

I also like a little sweetness (but not too cloying).

I can't vouch for whether you are a freak or not though.

Bill Russell

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bilrus

bilrus

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I like dark chocolate but I can't handle it in large amounts. I prefer milk chocolate for desserts, and dark chocolate for candy.

I am the exact opposite. I can deal with Dark as part of a dessert, but absolutely hate it in a candy bar.

Bill Russell

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Wendy DeBord

Wendy DeBord

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I think it completely depends upon the brand. Valrhona's Le Noir Amer is auesome. Have you tried it?

For me, no other brand of bittersweet (that I've tried) comes close. I understand what you mean about bitterness and I don't care for it either. Some brands bittersweet are very close to unsweetened. The Noir Amer isn't bitter...if a child accidently ate this they wouldn't try to spit it out or make a funny face...........

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Michael Laiskonis

Michael Laiskonis

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One of my most memorable chocolate tasting experiences was my first sample of Cluizel's 85%. As it melted, it threw off an immediate tannic bitterness that slowly gave way to a subtle sweetness, all the while offering up a range of flavors often lost behind the sugar and milk solids added to chocolate. But then, I'm a habitual user of strong, black coffee. I'm a fan of bitter.

I do enjoy milk chocolates with a higher cacao %, those approaching or exceeding 40%. And I find myself going through phases- who doesn't pop a pistole at work now and then- sometimes I gravitate toward the dark, though sometimes I just have to seek out a sliver of Varhona Jivara or my dwindling sample bag of E. Guittard's milk.

Michael Laiskonis

Pastry Chef

New York

www.michael-laiskonis.com

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Alex

Alex

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I can't get past the bitterness of it to even attempt to enjoy the flavor.  I keep trying it (in hopes that I'll find some I may like (has worked with many other foods I thought I dind't like)), but no luck so far.

Anyone else?

That's ok. More bittersweet for the rest of us.

I wonder if it has to do with your being a kind of "supertaster, " hypersensitive to bitterness. Do other foods with a bitter aspect also produce a similar reaction?

"There is no sincerer love than the love of food."  -George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, Act 1

 

"Imagine all the food you have eaten in your life and consider that you are simply some of that food, rearranged."  -Max Tegmark, physicist

 

Gene Weingarten, writing in the Washington Post about online news stories and the accompanying readers' comments: "I basically like 'comments,' though they can seem a little jarring: spit-flecked rants that are appended to a product that at least tries for a measure of objectivity and dignity. It's as though when you order a sirloin steak, it comes with a side of maggots."

 

"...in the mid-’90s when the internet was coming...there was a tendency to assume that when all the world’s knowledge comes online, everyone will flock to it. It turns out that if you give everyone access to the Library of Congress, what they do is watch videos on TikTok."  -Neil Stephenson, author, in The Atlantic

 

"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual." -Galileo Galilei, physicist and astronomer

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sherribabee

sherribabee

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I wonder if it has to do with your being a kind of "supertaster, " hypersensitive to bitterness. Do other foods with a bitter aspect also produce a similar reaction?

It's about half-and-half. I like cabbage. I like strong coffee. Don't care at all for beer, etc.

Sherri A. Jackson
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Marlene

Marlene

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I'm not a fan of dark chocolate either. I leave all the dark chocolates in a box for my husband :smile:

Marlene

Practice. Do it over. Get it right.

Mostly, I want people to be as happy eating my food as I am cooking it.

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sherribabee

sherribabee

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I can't vouch for whether you are a freak or not though.

Well, candy preferences aside...convincing arguments have been made both ways. :wacko:

But the truth probably lies closer to freak.

:angry: Hey!

Then again, you're probably right. :blush::wacko::blink:

Shhhhhhhhhh.

Sherri A. Jackson
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Bux

Bux

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There's really no such thing as white chocolate in my opinion. Am I wrong that the correct name for white chocolate is cocoa butter?

I think milk chocolate and dark chocolate serve different needs and likely different markets. I love a good milk chocolate bar, but when it comes to fine bon bons and pralines in the French or Belgian manner, I don't understand why the really great chocolatiers bother with milk chocolate most of the time.

Avocado, tomatoes, fennel and caramelized mushrooms have figured into great desserts in the hands of a talented chef. That I've had excellent desserts based on cocoa butter, milk chocolate and dark chocolate should be no surprise.

Creaminess seems to be an almost universally appreciated quality in candy. For that reason milk chocolate probably outsells dark chocolate and in general it's easier to appreciate fine Belgian chocolates then French chocolates. You almost have to train your palate to like the best French chocolates. I had a half pound of Bernachon's (Lyon's and maybe France's premier chocolatier) Palets d'Or which I didn't share very well. Each bon bon tasted better than the one before. It was a taste that I learned to better appreciate by spacing out the tasting. I though they were also so intense that I couldn't see someone scarfing down a pound at one sitting.

Robert Buxbaum

WorldTable

Recent WorldTable posts include: comments about reporting on Michelin stars in The NY Times, the NJ proposal to ban foie gras, Michael Ruhlman's comments in blogs about the NJ proposal and Bill Buford's New Yorker article on the Food Network.

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PastryLady

PastryLady

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Save them for me!!!!

I used to like only milk chocolate, but my tastes changed. I love dark chocolate, but some people have bad "experiences" with dark, so they just don't like them. You said you like bitter coffee. Do you add cream, sugar or both? Why I ask is how I can sometimes tell if you may like a medium %. If you are the type that adds a ton of sugar and a ton of cream, you may only be a milk chocolate lover. Don't worry, there are people like that. Even if I think it is weird, I won't call you a freak. I would say give a good brand/type of dark chocolate a try first before you fix your mind up as a dark chocolate "hater" though. I have tried the chocolate that Michael spoke of and I believe you might like that. It was very smooth.

Debra Diller

"Sweet dreams are made of this" - Eurithmics

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sherribabee

sherribabee

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Save them for me!!!! 

I used to like only milk chocolate, but my tastes changed.  I love dark chocolate, but some people have bad "experiences" with dark, so they just don't like them.  You said you like bitter coffee.  Do you add cream, sugar or both?  Why I ask is how I can sometimes tell if you may like a medium %.  If you are the type that adds a ton of sugar and a ton of cream, you may only be a milk chocolate lover.  Don't worry, there are people like that.  Even if I think it is weird, I won't call you a freak.  I would say give a good brand/type of dark chocolate a try first before you fix your mind up as a dark chocolate "hater" though.  I have tried the chocolate that Michael spoke of and I believe you might like that.  It was very smooth.

No milk, no sugar in my coffee, thanks. Unless I go to Starbuck's (can't help it, there's one in my building), where for $5, I feel the need to make it more of a dessert than a coffee, so I load up on the soy milk and hazelnut syrup.

My tastes have changed about quite a few foods: fish, feta cheese, goat cheese, even red wine. I just kept trying them in different ways until I developed a taste for them. I'm still working on seaweed, anise, dark chocolate and rye bread.

Sherri A. Jackson
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sherribabee

sherribabee

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There's really no such thing as white chocolate in my opinion. Am I wrong that the correct name for white chocolate is cocoa butter?

No, you are not wrong. I don't care much for it, unless it's melted and I have pretzels to dip into it.

Edited by sherribabee (log)
Sherri A. Jackson
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Alex

Alex

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I'm not a fan of dark chocolate either.  I leave all the dark chocolates in a box for my husband :smile:

Same here, although I doubt that either of us would turn down chocolate in any form if offered.

That would be an interesting thread, no? -- complementary (or clashing) food preferences in spouses, sig others, etc.

"There is no sincerer love than the love of food."  -George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, Act 1

 

"Imagine all the food you have eaten in your life and consider that you are simply some of that food, rearranged."  -Max Tegmark, physicist

 

Gene Weingarten, writing in the Washington Post about online news stories and the accompanying readers' comments: "I basically like 'comments,' though they can seem a little jarring: spit-flecked rants that are appended to a product that at least tries for a measure of objectivity and dignity. It's as though when you order a sirloin steak, it comes with a side of maggots."

 

"...in the mid-’90s when the internet was coming...there was a tendency to assume that when all the world’s knowledge comes online, everyone will flock to it. It turns out that if you give everyone access to the Library of Congress, what they do is watch videos on TikTok."  -Neil Stephenson, author, in The Atlantic

 

"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual." -Galileo Galilei, physicist and astronomer

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beans

beans

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Depends upon the quality of the chocolate and the percentage of cacao solids. At first I hated it, but then that was when I tried, at age 5 or 6, a Hersey's dark chocolate fun size candy bar (what is the name of that thing?)

Dark Chocolate is lovely with a good, aged glass of whisk(e)y. :wub:

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PastryLady

PastryLady

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O.k. so I guess I can't figure you out. I would say though you probably had a bad dark chocolate, via candy bar, bloomed, bad combo or just not high quality. I would say for you to try a 60% range and you would like it more though. I don't like dark chocolate if it is cold. Sometimes you will get a combo that has something cold with dark chocolate. To me it has to be tempered and room temp for me to like dark chocolate. Melts better on the tongue. The doctored up coffee to me says that you prefer the milk anyways. The regular black coffee is really bitter, and your palate may not be able to discern this bitter with a chocolate bitter. Probably too hard to explain in words, but since you have black coffee what I presume every day, most times those people like a sweeter chocolate rather than a bitter. My dad only liked black coffee and had to have milk chocolate. Of course with most women, we will take any chocolate that comes before us (I don't like white "chocolate" though).

Debra Diller

"Sweet dreams are made of this" - Eurithmics

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