Choc it up to Scottish ingenuity
It’s not the first time I’ve tried to pin something on Scotland. I also blame it for golf, the game that leaves otherwise reasonable men wanting to beat themselves and each other with clubs — as far as I can tell, the main thing that separates golfers from cavemen is the pants. I’ve always wondered why golf can’t be more like pool, which also involves getting a ball in a hole but puts the holes much closer together, meaning you don’t have to put down your beer for as long.
However, Scotland isn’t exactly where you think of when it comes to lifestyle-altering food choices. This is the home of the scone, the end result of massive scientific efforts to invent something that’s bad for you and yet still tastes like asphalt. Then there’s haggis; I’ve never had it, but if I ever get a hankering for sheep stomach, please have me committed.
But this time I think they’ve got it right, to the point where my dietary habits may never be the same. I’m referring of course to the latest Scottish sensation: the deep-fried chocolate sandwich.
According to Ananova.com, this popular new delicacy consists of “two slices of white bread smothered in chocolate sauce, dipped in batter and deep-fried. It’s then covered in sugar and more chocolate sauce and served with vanilla ice cream.” Although if you want a healthier version, you can get wheat bread.
This is clearly a sandwich based on the old saying, “If something’s worth eating, it’s worth deep frying and covering in chocolate.” Well, the actual saying is, “If something’s worth eating, it’s wooooo…,” because the person who said it dropped dead from a massive coronary mid-sentence, but you get the idea.
The point being, why do things halfway? It’s like when the “fat free” craze first started — I foolishly jumped right on the bandwagon, thinking that eating a fat-free dessert was like eating something much healthier for you, like air. Little did I know the fat had been replaced by enough sugar to sweeten Bolivia.
Then, when I realized that fat free wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, I tried switching to fruit. This lasted until about 40 minutes after my first plastic container of peaches, when I got desperate and ate my stapler.
Apparently the Scots agree that fruit just won’t cut it when there are deep-fried chocolate sandwiches to be had. “The healthiest food on our menu is a winter fruits soup,” noted Debbie Walter, who introduced the sandwich at an Edinburgh hotel, “and it’s our worst seller.” Whether they’ve tried to boost sales by serving it in a sheep stomach is currently unclear.
Not that the sandwich doesn’t have its detractors. One nutritionist from Queen Margaret University College in Edinburgh noted, “This would never be my dessert of choice.” Which makes sense — a nutritionist ordering a deep-fried chocolate sandwich is like a vegetarian ordering an entire cow.
But for the rest of us, the deep-fried chocolate sandwich sounds like the perfect antidote to those pangs of hunger that strike you in the middle of the afternoon, or late at night, or really anytime the arteries are in need of a good cloggin’. I figure it can’t be too harmful, as long as I also make sure to get plenty of exercise.
Anyone for pool?