Being a chocolate correspondent

It's as fun as it sounds.

I was made The Observer’s Chocolate Correspondent about five years ago. I insisted on the title because there’s a joke in our house about how many ‘correspondent’ titles I can collect. In truth I’ve only really had one other official correspondent title (I was the Independent’s Fishing Correspondent for seven years and yes I really did fish). But over my 32 year career I’ve written on various subjects.

What does being a chocolate correspondent involve? From the beginning my editor, Harriet Green, and I decided the column was going to be about bringing joy. It’s a very small column and my Saturday Guardian column is very grown up and serious a lot of the time. During the pandemic I decided to, where possible, really concentrate on independents, too. So it involves testing chocolate - I also have a team of testers - and writing about what I like. I very very rarely slag off what I don’t like as given the paucity of words, I’d rather concentrate on what’s good, than what’s bad.

We switched the comments off after about a year (below the column) because despite me thinking chocolate would bring universal joy, some of the comments were just hateful. And given I go below the line a lot on my Saturday column I decided to have a day off. There’s a lot about the chocolate world that’s good, but there’s a lot that’s dark and exploitative. I know this. But given my Saturday column (which I’ve done for many years) is about really heavy subjects such as domestic violence and child abuse, you’ll forgive me for concentrating on the more fun side of chocolate and leaving the political stuff to others on this occasion.

Having spent fifteen years in the fashion industry, some of those years as a fashion editor on the Independent on Sunday (Real Life section, it rocked) I was also unprepared for how bitchy the chocolate world could be. I sometimes get emails from chocolate makers slagging off their competitors in a “did you know this about them?” way.

Anyway here is this week’s chocolate column. There’s lots in the coming weeks about Easter.

A note here that some of the chocolate in supermarkets labelled as ‘own make’ (Asda, Waitrose, M&S to name three) come from the same factory in Italy (if it has Made in Italy on it then chances are it’s from the same place).

Lakrids, that I mentioned this week, really need to be tried to be believed. When I was in Copenhagen - where Lakrids by Bulow is based - they were everywhere. There’s not a person I’ve introduced these to (even if they say they hate liquorice) that hasn’t become slightly addicted to them. If you have a shop near you go try them before you buy. And remember if you suffer from low blood pressure liquorice can help raise it (disclaimer: not a doctor). And also if you have high blood pressure, be careful with it.