Love & Chocolate

77% extra strong dark. That's what the wrapper says. 77% cocoa content.

The name of the confection is written in cursive on the front of the label. Brown on gold. "Chocolove XOXOX."The 'Chocolove' series of chocolate bars are available with a range of cocoa content, all the way from 33% (milk chocolate) to my industrial strength favorite.

Facinating stuff included on the label, as if one would sit and read the label of a candy bar the way one reads the outside of a cereal box in the morning. There's a stamp, reminicent of the stamps that used to be put on taxable alcoholic beverages, a finely detailed picture of a cocao bean framed with the words "extra dark strong," as if dark chocolate were some sort of controlled substance.

Also a little white stamp that says, "Love poem inside." And indeed there is. It is entitled "The Presence of Love," and is credited to Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Chocolove XOXOX should sponsor a contest. The chocolate eaters themselves should be able to submit love poems, and the best should be published on the inside of the wrappers. Do you think chocolate eaters are better poets? Do you think chocolate eaters are better lovers?