It’s beginning to look a lot like chocolate, everywhere you go… at least at my job. I’ll never forget my first holiday season with this company when I learned of Wilbur buds. A client sends a few boxes to our office every December, and when a coworker came to pick up their package and realized what it was, they ran to yell down the hall: “THE WILBURS ARE HERE!” Adding further glucose to the cocoa fire, another client routinely sends a veritable tower of Ghirardelli and Lindt confections. For a few years in a row now I’ve been tasked with doling out the goods in the communal kitchen a few items at a time; it’s the only thing standing in the way of us demolishing the whole pile at once.

So yeah, the chocolate abounds and adds to the pounds this time of year. And if you’ve ever had the feeling that December treats taste better than Halloween fare, it’s not your imagination, there’s a scientific reason for that. Turns out there’s a notable difference between European and most American chocolate. While all bars have the basic foundation of cocoa powder, sugar, and cocoa butter, the introduction of milk in the late 1800s led American manufacturers — with Hershey’s leading the charge — to develop a stabilizing process so the milk wouldn’t go bad. That process is still used in America today by many companies (though not by Wilbur and Ghirardelli, phew), and results in butyric acid, which is totally safe to eat! But smells like vomit to some, including the refined palates of many Europeans:

People from the United States who have grown up with household names like Hershey’s and Reese’s adore the classics. In fact, a 2020 study found that American chocolate consumers are especially influenced by childhood memories — holiday treats, campfire s’mores, Christmas candies. All sweet, sweet memories, but the same flavor that evokes nostalgia for Americans is the very one that turns the stomachs of many Europeans.

During the early 20th century, when refrigeration wasn’t reliable, the chocolate brand Hershey’s adopted a milk-stabilization process involving controlled lipolysis. The method kept milk usable for large-scale chocolate production as it traveled across country, but it also created butyric acid as a by-product. Butyric acid is perfectly safe to consume, but it’s the same compound responsible for the smell of rancid butter, Parmesan cheese, and vomit. So, an acquired taste, to say the least.

For Americans, that tangy note became the signature flavor of a childhood favorite. For Europeans raised on creamier chocolates, that same flavor can be… disturbing.

So, are all Europeans living in sweet, chocolate harmony? Not at all. For example, British chocolate uses more sugar and can include vegetable oils in place of cocoa butter — recipe tinkering that some argue means the resulting product isn’t chocolate at all.

The legal definition varies by country and region, but usually comes down to the required amount of cocoa solids present. Regulating the content ensures the customer knows what they are getting.

In the European Union, for example, milk chocolate must have at least 25 percent cocoa solids while dark chocolate must have at least 35 percent. The laws are the same in Canada. In the US, however, the FDA stipulates milk chocolate must have at least 10 percent chocolate liquor (which contains both cocoa solids and cocoa butter) while dark chocolate must contain 35 percent chocolate liquor.

With rising global demand and pressures on cacao production, chocolatiers everywhere are adapting. Still, one can’t help but wonder what ancient Amazonians would make of what we’ve done to their precious beans.

[From IFLScience]

Of course Americans brought notes of “rancid butter, Parmesan cheese, and vomit” to the chocolate party. Americans have basically given the same treatment to the republican party. Though I must say in my meager defense drawn strictly from personal experience, I’ve never taken a bite of Hershey’s, Reese’s, Nestle’s, Ghirardelli, etc and thought it tasted like bad butter, cheese, or throw up. I’ve had plenty of chocolate that just tasted bad, but I’ve never picked up those specific repugnant flavors. No, the only vomit I’ve encountered in relation to chocolate has come from instances of serious overindulgence, and I’ll leave it at that. I do wonder how this morsel of science could factor into the burgeoning production of lab-grown chocolate. I guess what I’m really saying is, I can’t wait to see “No butyric acid so it doesn’t smell like cheese!” printed on a candy bar wrapper someday soon.

Photos credit: Germans Aļeņins from Pixabay, Victoria from Pixabay