Chocolate Ecstasy

In the post-Easter, chocolate haze that most of us find ourselves in, I am thinking about the effects of chocolate. We all hear about it lowering blood pressure, reducing depression and being anti-carcinogenic.

But much more interestingly, apparently eating chocolate stimulates the same pleasure centres in the brain that an orgasm does.

And I can believe it. I eat chocolate in a way that some people find revolting, but I know I am not the only one.

1. The chocolate (preferably creamy milk chocolate - Galaxy for everyday, Belgian or Swiss for special occasions) must have been in the fridge. For reasons highlighted in a moment.


2. The chocolate must be eaten with a hot cup of tea. The differences in temperature, between the hot sting of tea and the cool hardness of the refridgerated chocolate provide a nice contrast. Aided by (and this is the bit that people find it hard to forgive) . . .


3. Dunking your chocolate in your tea. I only do this with Galaxy, as even to me it seems a little sacreligious to do this with expensive chocolate. There is something decadent about sucking the melted warm chocolate off whatever piece you are "dunking" and still finding cold chocolate underneath. Rarely done in public. But always with a feeling of guilty pleasure.


4. Dark chocolate is different - the higher the cocoa solids the better, and must be eaten straight from the fridge, but without dunking. It should then be left to melt slowly on my tongue. Hot tea has a different purpose here - to warm your mouth up to facilitate easy melting.

Recently, due to my aforementioned "healthy diet" (read, no chocolate, sweets, crisps, blah blah blah), I had my first serious chocolate "hit" in six weeks with Lucy's birthday cake - a chocolate cake from Thorntons, decorated with thick milk chocolate, filled with chocolate ganache and topped with whole Continental chocolates. Never having abstained from chocolate for that long, the pleasure hit was immense.

If chocolate affected me that way after not having had it for a while and it uses the same pleasure centres of the brain (I presume on a slightly smaller scale, but it probably depends on the man?!), I'm going to pass out with pleasure by the time I have sex again . . .

Of course, combining the two things together is the best way. Where's my paintbrush?