Purley

chocolate??? Everybody talks about how Canadian chocolate is not like English chocolate. Even Cadbury's chocolate is not supposed to be the same. Are you all saying that if I buy a bar of Cadbury's Hazelnut milk chocolate in Canada and get a bar of Cadbury's Hazelnut from England - they taste different?

Does everyone agree? If so I am going to get my sister to send me some chocolate so I can decide for myself! What kind should I get her to send?

squarepants

Honestly......I think most people just jump on the choc-bandwagon, when asked what they miss from back home. I for one, wasn't really into choc back home, I loved my crisps though, and was happy to find a little brit store by the side of the in Shakespeare ( just before stratford ontario ) during the weekend, the fella had all the flavours under the sun, and I went nuts, buying loads of walkers crisps, my favourite being "salt and shake".

You might not be able to get your chocolate, but doesn't Timmys beat your pret-a-manger's, starbucks, nero coffee and the rest?

Purley

I suppose I am going to date myself even more, but I remember the days when we used to buy Smith's Crisps at the pub and they came with the salt wrapped up in a piece of dark blue waxed paper. A friend of ours always said that he loved the crisps but the blue one was too salty!!!

Interested

Hi Liz,

I remember those crips form when I was a little girl!

The chocolate is definitely different. I do not enjoy the cadbury's in Canada. There are alternatives like Lindt, it's yummy!

Int.

wizzard

Chocolate is different all over the world, it is all down to ingredients and how much of various ingredients are in the chocolate. You can go from pure dark chocolate that is all cocoa to milk chocolate that has all the milk solids added to it. The main difference with English chocolate is the amount of milk in it compared to cocoa, i.e. they use a lot less cocoa which makes it taste a lot creamier and sweeter but technically less chocolaty. In fact traditional chocolate makers in France and Switzerland etc don't even consider UK chocolate to be real chocolate and until a recent EU ruling they used to label it "chocolate substitute" in their stores.

The cadburies in North America is made I believe under licence by Hershey and Hershey just make crfappy chocolate, in the same way as anything in North America that is mass produced on the scale needed for the market is kind of crappy, i.e. mass produced processed cheese or beer etc.

As solmeone else said, just because you are in North America doesn't mean you have to eat North American Chocolate or rather North American mass market chocolate. there are loads of smaller manufacturers in Canada that make really good chocolate, I know because we sell a lot of it. Also you can buy it imported from Switzerland or France or Germany or Belgium or yes even the UK etc. Just shop around. Domestic mass market like hershey is of course easiest to find and cheapest but mass market swiss like Lindt is also common and much better.

Drew

willmore

Hi Liz and everyone - this is from someone who was born and raised in Canada and it was certainly MY experience that the chocolate was INCREDIBLY BETTER TASTING in the UK than North America. I'm a Cadbury chocolate hazelnut bar freak. I'm so addicted to them. Each year the chocolate tastes worse than the year before (probably why I freeze them first)......when I travelled in the UK for 2 months and bought my first bar.....I freaked out - my first comment (no lie!!!) NOW THIS IS REAL CHOCOLATE.....NOT THE JUNK WE GET IN CANADA

willmore

Glaswegian

UK chocolate is crap - too high in sugar, too low in chocolate. Admittedly it's also a lot better than the native North American crap ....

Try a Toblerone - that'll do if you can't get really good Swiss or French stuff.

Come to Calgary - our Belgian chocalaterie Bernard Callebaut does awesome stuff.

http://www.bernardcallebaut.com/

Now THAT'S chocolate....

dingbat

Timmy's? Coffee and doughnuts are vile, sandwiches are barely passable. Give me Pret a Manger or McKraze as was in Blackfriars by Upper Ground....

Corky

Well you are all talking about chocolate.......well give the HP sauce a try. I was so surprized to see how different it tastes in UK than in Canada. It has a sharper taste in UK and much milder here.

Glaswegian

You need cayenne sauce if you want to add a zing - I like Frank's.

I was surprised just how bland some of the local versions are.

Then I started looking at labels - you find sugar in everything here - why do you need to add sugar to burgers or sausages?

simonhouse

UK Cadbury's is certainly alot different than the counterpart made here. I can eat a Brit cadbury's bar without feeling sick, but a couple of chunks in Canada and I'm ready to .. well you know.

RE Sugar - Everything in Canada seems to taste far sweeter than the stuff back home, especially doughnuts and cakes. Watching everybody queuing up for "Krispy Creme" in Calgary, I thought their doughnuts would be nice but they just taste like deep fried sugar. Bring me a Brit chocolate eclair with fresh cream any day!

ksct97

you won't be happy to hear that krispy creme is in the UK then!

willmore

I had a Brit chocolate eclair with fresh cream and it was really "out of this world"- add a good cup of coffee and you're set for the day.

Imported chocolate is always the best way to get that 'chocolate fix" - but can get quite pricey when it's an every day occurrence. Hobnobs are a bit expensive - but much better tasting and a good alternative (except they don't have any hazelnuts)!!!

I also noticed that your butter is less salty than ours - which was a pleasant change - but I wasn't very happy about how hard it was to find ketchup for my scrambled eggs. HP sauce just doesn't "cut it" when eating scrambled eggs.

Purley

One of the partners at the law firm I used to work at referred to donuts as "deep fried fat" - an appropriate title I think!!