Swiss Chocolate Frogs

I’m having trouble forgiving American chocolate makers for not taking chocolate to the sensory peaks I have experienced in Swiss chocolate. Yes, I know our cows don’t get to eat wildflowers all day in Alpine splendor. I also know we don’t have the history of chocolate manufacturing the Swiss enjoy. But when I looked through the window of a chocolate shop in Geneva and saw a row of 12 inch chocolate frogs with thick green marzipan lips and gaping mouths filled with small chocolates, I couldn’t help wondering where American ingenuity went wrong.  If we can think up electricity, the automobile and the iPhone why didn’t someone think of making giant chocolate frogs with bugging marzipan lips and eyes?              

Christopher Columbus brought chocolate back to Spain from the new world in 1502 and Switzerland didn’t even open its first Swiss chocolate confections factory until 1819. After all, chocolate comes from our side of the Atlantic in the first place and we’ve had almost 200 years to get with the program. I’m grieving those frogs every time I open a plain old bar of zebra striped orange flavored milk chocolate or eat another chocolate rose. I can’t even bring myself to look at one more foil wrapped chocolate Santa or another chocolate bunny. Yawn.

Well, it’s clear to me the Swiss have their priorities in order. Even though they didn’t give women the vote until 1971 and they have questionable banking secrets for handling the money of the world’s rich and infamous, they know their chocolate. The Swiss consume 54% of the chocolate they produce with a per capita consumption of a whopping 25.6 pounds per person per year. I’ll just betcha every Swiss person eats at least one of those frogs every year. That does it, I’m applying for Swiss citizenship.

Copyright © 2013 Gayle Madison