National Dark Chocolate Day.

National Dark Chocolate Day. 

You'd never have known what day it is today since very few would claim any knowledge of its significance in the general scheme of things. It's a little known fact and besides there have been no reminders and you could have spent the whole of Saturday innocently minding your business and just curious to find out. It wouldn't have mattered had you not been informed but it would have been nice to be told. 

So let's put you out of your misery and just tell you. Ladies and Gentlemen. Today it's National Dark Chocolate Day and some of us are dancing from the rooftops. Crikey. Now that's a pleasant surprise because some of us just adore dark chocolate and always have done so for as long as you can remember. Yes folks. Chocolate, as we all know, is simply delightful, one of the best tea time treats of all time or any time and the childhood indulgence most of us couldn't get enough and are still in thrall to whatever the occasion. 

But this is no ordinary celebration of chocolate. This is much more specific and so utterly delicious. When you were a child, your wonderful grandparents, grandma and grandpa, were always ready to greet their first grandson with plentiful bars of chocolate because it was their favourite chocolate and they naturally assumed that their lovely grandson would appreciate the finer textures and flavours of good chocolate. 

And yet who of us doesn't like chocolate? You often think this was part of a whole conditioning process as a child, that formative introduction to the sweetest of all foods. But dark chocolate was always pretty special. As soon as you walked into their large, spacious house in Gants Hill, Essex, the polite requests would come thick and fast. Grandma and grandma actively encouraged you to eat it so why not? The choices were always available almost immediately. Did you want a huge bag of crisps, chocolate or a lager shandy from the cocktail cabinet? Somehow you were enormously spoilt and felt so privileged. 

But the dark chocolate but not quite so dark and mysterious was Bourneville. Now to an impressionable kid, chocolate was a daily reward for your arduous academic endeavours. If you were a good lad at school and had behaved impeccably throughout the day then chocolate was something your mum would never hesitate to buy you. And that's when it all started. It was literally like walking into a sweet shop and ogling with wonderment at the phenomenal variety of chocolates and sweets. 

In front of me were well ordered rows of bars of chocolate neatly stacked together in all of their mouth watering, enticing splendour. At the time, nobody had heard of the damaging side effects that could potentially impact on you, the health hazards, the distressing quantities of sugar and fat in chocolate and the substantial amount of weight you could put on as a result. If eaten on a regular basis, you'd probably spend most of your life making constant appointments with your local doctor. Your midriff and stomach was expanding by the minute and the stones would pile on. 

Before you knew it, chocolate would land you in terrible and serious trouble. Surely though there was nothing wrong with chocolate because that first bite into Dairy Milk would guarantee smiles and pleasure all around. Personally, it was a toss up between Mars and Milky Way, those staple bars of chocolate that were just irresistible, bite sized but enough to stimulate your appetite in a way you could hardly have expected as a new born. 

And then there were the simple charms of sweets such as Love Hearts, Pastilles, Jelly Babies, Lemon and Strawberry sherbets that would stare at you seductively from their jars. In the freezer there were the choc ices, chocolate ice cream on a stick, chocolate of every conceivable shape, size and design. But, despite all the sensory temptations it was always Bourneville. Bourneville had a sharp, bitter tang that was just out of this world but it was good chocolate, classy chocolate, chocolate that had style and substance, chocolate from the finest stock and aristocratic background, chocolate that melted in the mouth and left indelible memories. 

So it was that you were hooked, besotted and made for life. You began to develop a lifelong relationship and friendship with Bourneville. In that traditional red packet and shaped like a modern I Phone or calculator, there were small square fragments of chocolate that you would either snap off enthusiastically or could be bitten into with a ravenous relish. You could eat it at any time of the day and just enjoyed since it just made you feel so good. 

There was, if memory serves you correctly, a wonderful bar of dark chocolate in Britain called Jamaica Rum or Old Jamaica Rum. Now here was something different and original. For the first time as a child, you would find raisins and currants in dark chocolate. What a magnificent combination and it didn't get any better? You'd have to go a long way to find anything more perfect and complete. So you settled down at tea time and then find the same ingredients being employed in biscuits. 

One day you came home from school and would open up your mum and dad's bread bin for this was the place you would invariably find your dark chocolate Digestive biscuits, a moreish and madly addictive chocolate sweet treat that could leave you floating on a high for ages. That first crunch and savour of the dark chocolate biscuit would leave you on cloud nine for what seemed like an indefinite period of time. There were always Fry's dark segments of choc and nowadays Thornton's have captured the most expensive end of the market. There are dark chocolate versions of Galaxy, Green and Black and a various boxes of Celebrations and Quality Street. 

It can't be denied that dark chocolate has held a warm place in your heart for years and years. Today is the day when you can just take it easy because it is the weekend. It'll be Saturday evening and there probably isn't a great deal worth watching on TV. But there's been a large bar of Bourneville in the cupboard and you've been longing to unwrap it. There can be no better time than now to devour that smooth dark brown slice of heaven. You shouldn't really be looking for the kind of comfort food that thousands of dieticians, nutritionists, food scientists have never tired of telling us is highly inadvisable and bad for you. But personally, dark chocolate is the most unbeatable taste sensation. Go on. It's highly recommended.