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Chocolate and the British love affair with it
What is it about chocolate and the British love affair with it? If you look hard enough at the Bayeux Tapestry someone’s eating a Twix. It’s better than kissing. We eat our body weight in it every ten years.
Singer Enya allegedly keeps a packet of emergency Revels in her piano stool but spits out the toffee ones. Her piano tuners are sick to the back teeth of peeling them off the strings.
Luckily, the Easter Bunny had already visited Grainger Delivery’s Northern Delicious with his basket of Davenport’s handmade eggs. He stocked up North’s Chocolates with all sorts of goodies and lined the shelves of Haswell’s Corner shop with Easter egg brands you know and love before his caravanning accident. Get well soon EB.
Why we love chocolate
Why do we love chocolate? Letting it dissolve slowly in the mouth produces as big a spike in brain activity and heart rate as a passionate kiss. That’s one of the findings of psychologist David Lewis who’s also a big Fish Finger fan and as my dear old Nan used to say, ‘fish feeds the brain.’ She came from Durham.
The effects of the chocolate last four times longer than a kiss according to Dave. That’s probably why Connie Worthington from Doncaster married a box of Milk Tray in 1982. They plan to celebrate next year’s ruby wedding anniversary with a trip to Madame Tussauds London to see the new Tom O'Connor waxwork.
Chemical reasons for why we love chocolate
Here comes the science bit with chemical reasons why we love chocolate. I’ll keep it brief. It’s got psychoactive chemicals in it like anandamide, a neurotransmitter whose name derives from the Sanskrit ananda, meaning joy, bliss, delight. Anandamides stimulate the brain in much the same way cannabis does Tyramine and phenylethylamine are two amino acids found in chocolate - both of which have similar effects to amphetamines, stimulating brain cells to release dopamine.
Lastly, it contains small traces of theobromine and caffeine. Both are well-known stimulants. No wonder we can’t put the flipping stuff down.
Chocolate in popular culture
Now to the bit where I explore chocolate in popular culture and the first chocolate lover on our list is singer Ronan Keating. The lyric he would have preferred in his song that goes ‘life is a rollercoaster just gotta ride it’ was ‘life is a box of chocolates just gotta hide it.’
A little bird tells me that he loves squirrelling away a box of Black Magic a day. He eats them very slowly in the cupboard under the stairs while mending old hoover bags.
Angela Ripon used to date a chap called Terry Gold purely because she loves Terry’s All Gold but Terry was forever kept in the dark as Angela’s face lit up every time she tucked in. He thought she truly loved him for him but Angela’s feelings suddenly changed the day Terry decided to stop paying his TV licence fee.
To keep the naughty poltergeist that many believe is Betty Driver aka Betty Turpin from wreaking havoc in the Rovers, the cast of Coronation Street insist on a daily ritual before filming. Betty loved choc-chip Tracker bars and they leave one or two hidden in the vicinity of the dartboard before each take. Once it’s a wrap the cast check on them and all that’s ever left is a pile of crumbs.
Spooky.
Happy Easter everybody.
Sources:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-39067088
https://www.explainthatstuff.com/scienceofchocolate.html
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