Food in Mouth

Mast Brothers Chocolate taste test

Having street cred is pretty important no matter what line of work you pursue. For example, if you want to be a heart surgeon, it's probably important to not to be seen as some dude who fucks up all the time. Or if you're a pilot, it's probably good to have credibility and be reliable. For food bloggers, I guess it's all about having a good palate. Although I'm pretty sure if you're coming here regularly, you know that I profess love for things like McDonald's breakfast. So when Steph got me some high quality chocolates called Mast Brothers Chocolates as a present, we both thought it would be fun to test out my taste buds on these $11 dollar chocolate bars. It's 72% cacao bars made with love by bearded men, versus the big bad wolf. Hershey's extra dark chocolate, which clocks in at 60% cacao.

So to have a taste test, we got some other contenders. We got the Scharffen Berger 70% cacao bittersweet dark chocolate ($4). Valrhona dark bitter chocolate with 70% cacao ($4). And Hershey's with 60% cacao ($3) because that was the best that I could find. The two Mast Brothers chocolate bars in the contest were Dark Chocolate with dried cranberries and the Dark Chocolate with Salt & Pepper.

After blindfolding myself the fun began (and doesn't it always?) Each chocolate differed in sweetness and some even offered saltiness. There were ones that felt acidic or citrusy and ones that tasted spicy. There were ones that supposedly had hints of vanilla that I couldn't taste at all, and ones with obvious complex notes that I couldn't decipher. At the end of the blind taste test, the Hershey's bar came out on top for me, followed by the Scharffen Berger bar. I think the Hershey's bar benefited from a sweeter taste and the lower cacao content probably helped it to stand out in the taste test. The Mast Brothers actually didn't score well with me on a taste preference, but it was really obvious to me that the Mast Brothers bars were completely different than the other three brands. When I say complexity, I mean that there's tastes that I don't know how to explain. For most commercial chocolate bars you're getting a milky chocolatey taste that's coupled with sweetness. Obviously for dark chocolate bars, you'll also have the additional bitter component. With the Mast Brothers bars, they were just different. They were like that guy who wore sweatpants to school every day of middle school even as the whole school made jokes about him. You didn't know why it was different, but it was just so obviously different.

Also worth noting was that for Steph, the order of preferences was almost exactly reversed. So maybe there is something wrong with my palate!

In the era of hipsters, I think it's important to note that anyone who's anyone in the food industry has some facial hair. Look at Chef Tom. And Zach. Then go look at the Mast Brothers. Look at the mane on those men. They mean bidness. Athletes use the word 'swoll' to describe muscles. I think we should use 'swoll' to describe their beards and their chocolate making skills. Look, I'm not about to tell you to like dark chocolate versus milk chocolate, or that $11 chocolates is an everyday treat. If you get a chance to do a blind taste test on these things, you'll really notice how different and unique these expensive chocolates are. Make no mistake, they're fucking expensive. And if it's for a special thing, totally go for it.

The last thing I want to talk about is the idea of fairness and the idea of loss. Recently, Whole Foods markets implemented a new employee discount program. Financial Times reports that all employees will retain a 20% discount, but those who enter into a program can get up to 30% discount if they meet the requirements of "not to smoke, to have a BMI of less than 24, cholesterol levels below 150 mg/dL and blood pressure of 110/70." Now I know there's lots of you who think this is outrageous on the face of it. I really want to know why such a program is crazy.

To illustrate the point I want to make, I want to direct you all to something called the Ultimatum game. This game is usually conducted in an experimental setting and it works like this. It's a two player game. Player One gets to decide how to divide up a sum of money with Player Two. So we'll say it's about $20 dollars. Player One can say, "Let's split it $10 and $10" or "Let's split it $19 and $1" Player Two's role in the game is simply to decide whether to accept the deal or reject the deal. If the deal is accepted, both players take the proposed split. If the deal is rejected, both players take home nothing. Please note that we're basically talking about this. If you take the deal, YOU GET SOMETHING. If you reject the deal, YOU GET NOTHING. Now, if you accept every single type of proposal, you ALWAYS walk out of the experiment with MORE resources than before. However, experimenters found that offers less than 20% are often rejected. The thinking is that often, Player Two will reject the proposal if it doesn't seem fair. And that punishing Player One with zero resources is better than taking some resources home.

People are burdened with the idea of fairness even as they're talking about getting something they aren't even entitled. Even if you're given a chance for FREE resources, many people turn down free resources just for the sake of fairness. The company doesn't have to give any employees a single discount. In fact, they could easily say that their bottom line is hurting so the 20% discount is going down to 10%. There's no such law that states employees must get employee discounts. It's a perk. It's extra. But when it's done in a system where it feels like it helps skinny people... well then folks are up in arms. While we're at it, surveys show that fat folks make less money. So are the people angry about the Whole Foods system also ready and willing to say "Well golly, I should take a pay cut so that heavier people make the same amount as skinnier people." I'm sure when it's your own resources on the line, people shut the fuck up. Anyway, I think the biggest thing is that when employers save money on health insurance premiums, those savings should turn into increased compensation. It shouldn't turn into increased employee discounts. Somehow people don't get angry about that, and I don't really get it.

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Posted by Danny on February 8 2010 at 11:01 am