Surprisingly, while I do eat chocolate – dark to white, I like it – I’m not a huge enthusiast! However…
- I live in a town split into three “fractions” (so… like… 3 actual towns - one by the sea, one in the valley, another one more or less in the valley again) with just barely 7-8 thousand people and yet we have a mall with a Lindt bar and chocolate shop! It’s pretty large. We get at least one or two Lindt chocolate ball bags annually. I love them, all of the flavours.
- What else… I like gianduiotti. Ferrero Rochers also. Tiramisù is okay but I’m not crazy for it, however it’s great when done well.
- Ritter Sport blocks are sooo good!
- Milka is very good… all of their chocolate-based snacks like the cookies are insanely good also.
- Cadbury was good, but I don’t really remember it.
- Do not know anything about American chocolate. All I know is that Hershey’s is apparently bad.
@joyh97 @ahmwritingco My neighbor one floor down, Giovanni, now in his 80s and retired, is the dude who was in charge of the production of Ferrero Rochers – and the entire reason Ferrero Rochers got made and sold at all. He told me the story when I was helping him fix something wrong with his TV, I think he started because he had some Ferrero bags/paraphernalia or whatever.
They basically were a sweet in development hell. One day, in the Alba establishment, Giovanni and other people, including Michele Ferrero (who invented the Rocher) were browsing a bunch of papers from what pretty much was an informal “cabinet of ideas”. He was looking through most of them when the Rocher stuck out and asked why hadn’t they done it yet. Michele simply said it didn’t fit in their line yet for production reasons. Giovanni then replied saying he would contract out the right machinery and actually get it to market, which happened. This was about 40 years ago.
Working at Ferrero is a dream, I knew it was already but just as I check Wikipedia I am reminded: it really is the most reputable Italian brand of all time, apparently. My school had us visit somewhere near a factory in Piedmont many years ago and that’s were I had the confirmation. It’s all based on good old Toyotism, basically a feedback loop of positivity, better pay means more happiness which means better work and so on. Workers get lots of permits and vacation days along with other freebies and I think up to a certain quota of sweets (1/2kg?) you can sneak out the building per month.
