I recently came across the tunes of a Swiss band, Death by Chocolate, and was surprised by how those words sent a subliminal message to my subconscious mind, triggering a craving for sugary goodness. I suppressed the urge to head to the mall for a fix, but couldn’t help but wonder about the power of an expression commonly used to describe indulgence.
A google search for Death By Chocolate recipes will give you everything from cakes to ice creams. The only constant being, lots and lots of chocolate...dark chocolate.
The term was used for the first time by Americans in the 1990’s and became a popular feature on menus in restaurants that wanted to up the dose of dessert decadence.
When Nigel Rees, creator of the panel game-Quote...UnQuote- on BBC Radio 4, picked it up as a topic of discussion he said this was an example of “gallows humour by chocoholics who are happily aware of the possible consequence of overindulgence in their favourite food.”
Death does manage to dramatise the effect of overindulgence. The registered trade mark rights were nabbed by F.T. Wood & Sons Limited in the UK, which sells deeply chocolaty puddings, cheesecakes, ganache tarts and souffle pies. That has not stopped many others from referring to overloaded desserts as that or using it on their menus to attract customers.
More interestingly, its reference is not confined to what goes into a baking pan. In fact, a chocolate incident of the nature is in papers from the 1940’s. The recorded word has it that the Nazi’s had planned to kill Winston Churchill with dark chocolate coated explosive devices during the Second World War. They planned to package it as a chocolate bar - Peters Chocolate-and slip it in with the other luxury items that were presented in the dining room used by the War Cabinet. Hitler’s plan went kaput, but the event put a literal twist to an otherwise casually used expression.
Campaigns, songs and books have been inspired as well. Chef Marcel Desaulniers, known for his love for chocolate ganache, struck gold when his Death By Chocolate cookbook won the James Bead Foundation’s Best Dessert Book award. It went on to be the basis of the US based chef’s own TV show of the same name. American author, Sally Berneathy, incorporated it a bit differently by mixing it with some mystery and thrill in the book Death By Chocolate, which is part of a fiction series.
Let’s come closer to home for something more tangible. The Death By Chocolate cake can be ordered at Brownie Point in Karama and Al Barsha in Dubai. The dark chocolate sponge base topped with milk chocolate mousse, glazed with chocolate and sprinkled with nuts delight is sold for Dh8 for a slice and Dh100 for the entire cake.
Continuing to crush the craving, I progress to some downtempo on the music playlist. Swaying to De-Phazz’s Death By Chocolate rendition, I need to remind myself - what cannot kill me, can still make me waist bigger!
