I love chocolates.
I developed my taste for it when I was still in my pre-Kinder year. My memories of that period is a bit vague but I keenly remember my mom giving me a dark ball of something sweet and bitter. It melted in my mouth. The sweet and bitter taste swirled in my mouth, giving me my first taste of food bliss.
It was a homemade chocolate candy. I am not sure now if my lola Saria made it from cacao or if our neighbor lola Loring shared some of her own home made confections. Some cacao trees in our backyard at the province yield fruits that lola Saria and lola Pacing make into coffee or home made chocolate balls.
The cacao beans were arranged in flat bamboo baskets or bilaos and were left on our galvanized roof to dry under the sun's UV rays. After drying the cacao beans were roasted slowly in a banga. The roasted beans afterward were then pounded and ground between two stone slabs that are turned by hand. The ground cacao beans can then be made into chocolate candies and other cooking needs.
I wrote the cacao bean preparations from memory, if you want a more accurate/authentic procedure the only person I know who (is still alive) can churn cacao chocolates is lola Loring. Lola Loring lives in Solsona, Ilocos Norte, she is well known at the poblacion or town center.
Whenever I pop in a Meiji dark chocolate, the thought of those home made cacao chocolate balls in my younger years pop out. I love Meiji chocolates. I like their Melty Kiss, Horn, and of course the Meiji dark chocolate bars (my family lists this as an all time favorite chocolate). My kids (9 and 4 years old) are of course not encouraged to eat chocolates often. Even if I am a chocaholic , I don’t want my kids to lose their teeth and cry in discomfort due to toothaches courtesy of much loved chocolates.
Mmmmmelty kisssssss!
Meiji’s Melty Kiss is a melty sensation. It practically melts in your mouth! It’s the first
chocolate product I that “seduces” me to consume more than a box! The box are in a “cute size,” and with my husband and kids competing with me for the individually wrapped chocolate cubes, one box is JUST not enough!
a melty kiss chocolate cube, yummy!
Well, I’m just an average earner and for me the Melty Kiss is a bit prohibitive. BUT! You will understand why even my husband didn’t say a word against y buying more than one box of Melty Kiss along with a box of Horn and a Meiji dark chocolate bar in one evening. The hoard didn’t last before noon of the following day! AND all of us were left wanting more!
a box of Meiji's horn chocolates
here's a piece of horn chocolate, i don't know how to describe it but it certainly is crunchy and chocolatey, the crunch i attribute to its wafery "coat"
