Like Soap for Chocolate

My Hindi is slowly coming back, and fortunately in India there are always enough Aunties to chat with in the morning and evening. Initially, I was too nervous about my Hindi’s degradation to really want to talk to people. But now I’m feeling more ambitious. Granted, I am not excited to return to Joshimath just yet. I’m also working myself up to talking in just Hindi with the PhD students with whom I work. I would feel bad not to pay someone to speak with me, because it is probably very nails-on-chalkboard for a native speaker to listen to me speak in Hindi.

Regardless, I am excited that on the way to work I began speaking with a woman who used to be a servant for the family that owns my house. Since they have moved to Nepal, she has had to find other work. We were talking about how cold Dehradun is—it’s really not—and about how nice Dr. Rawat’s house is. When she heard that I’m form America, she starting telling me that American chocolate is very good. I could not believe that was her association with America! I told her that I also enjoyed American chocolate, because Indian chocolate tastes like Hershey’s mixed with soap. Only not as bitter as soap, fortunately. Well, I left out my rant about Indian chocolate when I was speaking with her, because I didn’t want to rub salt in the wound. But she grabbed my arm and started enthusiastically talking about American chocolate when I agreed with her. We’re still number 1.

But actually, we’re not number 1 in the chocolate field. I had a layover in Brussels going and coming back from America. I got chocolate going home and alcohol coming back. I shared the chocolates with my family and with Peter and everyone agreed that Belgium chocolate was so good that it has become clear that Europe is only exporting the dregs of their chocolate batches to America. I wonder what this woman would do if I had brought her Belgium truffles.

This brings me to my final point of the post. Why can’t Indians make decent chocolate and baked goods? The British did colonize them and I understand that does not lead to mature taste buds. But the British also enjoy privacy. This has not made an imprint on Indian culture. So, I just don’t understand why one of the most quickly developing nations in the world has to rely on other countries for their baked goods and chocolates. Indians do make sweets. These sweets are generally a combination of condensed milk, milk powder, rosewater or almonds, and more sugar than what is in a vat of Kool Aid. Side note: Diabetes is on the rise in India. There is no doubt that it takes skill to make these ingredients into something that holds a shape and has numerous different textures and flavors. So, why does every attempt at baking and making chocolate fail? This country can outsource everything except for high-quality desserts.

At first I thought that there wouldn’t be enough call for such confections in India. But everyone from wealthy PhD students to servants seems to completely love American and European desserts. Get it together Indian chefs! When your best and brightest students have Harvard and MIT listed as “safety schools,” then you know that you have the brainpower to overcome American chocolates. Let’s not even try to present Belgium as the power to beat.