Freiaday 18 February 2000

Pic of the day: What is that Toblerone (Swiss milk chocolate with honey and almonds) doing on top of the Freia Fruktnøtt (Norwegian milk chocolate with raisins and hazelnuts) and both of them in the nude? And what's all this got to do with the Internet? Find out in ...

It looked like fog, looking out the window. But it was not fog. It was snow. And a few minutes later I was in it. The white flies easily dodged my umbrella, and stayed afloat in the air until they could settle on my clothes and my hands. Cold. But I had to go. I had promised my Best Friend to go look for a book for her. And not just any book. "Legevakthandboka". Not sure about the exact translation, but it's a book for medical first line general practitioners. And she's going to need it, because that's where she will be practicing this March. And in the county where I live, no less. (That's not the reason, though. She's even promised to not look at my records, which I appreciate, because there is at least one very embarrassing episode there. I mean, embarrassing even by my standards.)

So anyway, there I was, trudging through the wall of floating snow, but barely noticing it. My thoughts were on my lovely friend, and on chocolate. Like, will she or will she not be eating chocolate when she comes home to Norway next time? With women, you never know. Either they will eat chocolate, in which case you better have a generous supply, or they won't even look at the stuff, in which case you can eat it all by yourself. Ahem.

I think it was one of the Christian fiction writers of this century who came up with the chocolate and sex allegory. Or perhaps not. Anyway, the idea was that Heaven might not be all that bad even without sex. After all, if you tell a child that sex is better than chocolate, the kid will be inclined to disbelieve you. (Not to mention that the kids rightly will wonder about your motives for suddenly starting to say this to them, but that's not the point.) In a similar way, grown-ups tend to believe that there is no way Heaven can be better than this life, unless this life has turned pretty bad. But once we enter the new phase, things will seem different.

Whoever made up that parable was definitely male. I've been informed by some of my female friends who have tried both chocolate and sex, that it is not an either-or. :)
But personally I suspect that even if it were, not all of them would give up the chocolate. I still believe that women who cannot resist temptations get fat, while men who cannot resist temptations get jailed. But I may be severely biased, having been male all my life.

Still, I think you can get a hint from the illustrated weeklies. The ones who are aimed mainly at a male audience tend to have a pretty heavy content of (at best) scantily clad women. The ones aimed mainly at a female audience, however, have a similar degree of food. Complete with tempting color photos. I suspect this is a pretty good indication of what is considered mouth-watering by the respective reader groups.

The Internet, like most things computerish, has been dominated by men. I foresee that with universal net access, the market for "food porn" will explode. Those who have positioned themselves in time, will be able to profit. (And may have a lucrative side business selling various miracle slimming cures, too, preferably from a different website.)

Don't count on me, however. Not only am I a poor food photographer (as shown above), I am also bad at descriptive prose. So I cannot really convey the feeling of expectation that accompanies the opening of a new box of chocolates, the way the smell reaches you just a moment before you bite into it and feel the sweet taste engulf your tastebuds ... well, nothing of that. Too bad. But perhaps you can do it? You could even combine it with a personal journal, you know. "Diary of a chocolate taster." I bet that would draw a crowd.

And on that note, I bid you all a good night from beautiful Norway, land of the milk chocolates. Sweet dreams!