The Great European Chocolate Exchange

I don't get mail frequently, and when I do it's always really exciting. Except for when it's a bill from the doctor's office. But that only happened a couple of times, and then I shipped those bills off to Germany so the insurance people could take care of them. Anyway, today was three times as exciting as most days when I get mail because I got three things in the mail! Here they are:

A letter from my grandpa, a postcard from Florida, and a BOX from BELGIUM! When I saw the box, I was confused at first because I wasn't expecting any boxes. But then I looked at the stamp and it was from Belgium and I immediately remembered about the chocolate exchange. Before I get into this, I'd like to mention that the postcard from Florida isn't from anyone I actually know, it's part of a cool internet project that involves sending postcards to random people in the world and getting postcards from other random people in the world. Strangely enough, this random person signed the card as "Mimi B.," which is a version of my mother's name, although I highly doubt my mother secretly send me this card because I am positive she is not in Tampa right now. So this postcard thing is called Postcrossing and if you like postcards or other countries, you should check it out. The only costs are the postcards and stamps you send out.

Back to the chocolate exchange. Laura and I are both outbounds from the same Kansas Rotary District; she went to Belgium this year and I went to Switzerland. As most of you know, Belgium and Switzerland are the two European countries most renowned for their superb chocolate. In fact, there is even a chocolate factory in Fribourg called Villars that manufactures chocolate of the Villars brand. One day I found out that Laura's Belgian town also houses a chocolate factory and I proposed to her that we send each other samples of the chocolate made in our respective factories so we could compare between the two. And so the Great European Chocolate Exchange was born. I sent her some Villars chocolate in the mail a while ago, and then today I received her package of Belgian chocolate. This is what I saw when I first opened the box:

Apparently these are the two kinds of chocolate manufactured in Laura's town. The Kinder brand is apparently owned by Ferrero, the same company that created the Raffaello chocolate pictured below. So it's not exactly Belgian chocolate, but it was made in Belgium so it sort of is.

Here's a closer view of the loot.

Of course I had to try out the chocolate. That's the whole point, right? I have to let all of you readers out there know whether Belgian or Swiss chocolate is better. This is, after all, a competition, if not a "battle," as Laura literally referred to it in the note she wrote me. Speaking of notes, Laura's friend Tara also left me a note inside the package. She's Canadian. I have never met her. It was a nice note, though.

And here's my review. I tried the Italian one first because I was afraid of opening the Kinder package. Once it's open, I have to work hard to make it last a reasonable amount of time. The Italian chocolates have an almond in the middle surrounded by chocolate and are covered on the outside with shredded coconut. I must say, I was a little biased because coconut, in my opinion, is just about the best thing you can combine with chocolate. So these were like little Almond Joys, except the coconut was on the outside instead of the inside. And these were so much better. Like a thousand times better. I would use this equation to describe them: Raffaello = 1000 x Almond Joy. Meaning it would take you 1000 Almond Joys to equal the greatness of one Raffaello. Approximately.

Then for the Kinder ones: a chocolate outside filled with a milk and nuts sort of mixture. Also very good, but I'm sure that you can buy these in Switzerland because there are about 50 different kinds of Kinder chocolates. I am convinced, however, that these Kinder Schoko-Bons are special because they are Belgian, which is obvious, since the writing on the package is in French and Dutch instead of in German, French and Italian.

I think this is a battle that ends at a stalemate. Villars chocolate is amazing, of course, and I like to be loyal to my town, but the Belgian chocolate was good too. I do think it's cool that Villars manufactures their own brand, but they are both so good that they both have to be winners in my book. The conclusion: Belgian and Swiss chocolate are both better than American chocolate, which is why I'm going to try to take as much back with me as I can to share with all of you (and of course a little bit for myself). Unless, of course, you'd like to come visit me here in the next two months before I leave for Germany to try out Swiss chocolate in the correct geographical context. Somehow I think it is unlikely that you will. Plus Rotary probably wouldn't allow it. So be sure to come by and see me between my return to the States (July 29) and when I leave for KU (sometime in the middle-ish of August). While supplies last.