I thought Atrios was kidding, but no. Vosges Haut Chocolat has indeed come out with a bacon-flavored chocolate bar. I’m not sure if it qualifies as long-awaited, but it should have been.
From the description:
Bacon Exotic Candy Bar – New
Applewood smoked bacon + Alder smoked salt + deep milk chocolate
Deep milk chocolate coats your mouth and leads to the crunch of smoked bacon pieces. Surprise your mouth with the smoked salt and sweet milk chocolate combination.
Crisp, buttery, compulsively irresistible bacon and milk chocolate combination has long been a favorite of mine. I started playing with this combination at the tender age of six while eating chocolate chip pancakes drenched in maple syrup. Beside my chocolate-laden cakes laid three strips of fried bacon, just barely touching a sweet pool of maple syrup. Just a bite of the bacon was too salty and yearned for the sweet kiss of chocolate syrup. In retrospect, perhaps this was a turning point, for on that plate something magical happened: the beginnings of a combination so ethereal and delicious that it would haunt my thoughts until I found the medium to express it–chocolate.
–Katrina
Vosges is my favorite chocolatier (if you know what I mean). Not only do they blend excellent chocolate with a wide variety of exotic spices to create uniformly interesting and delicious combinations, but I stumbled upon them when they were just a tiny one-shop operation in Chicago, before their blossoming into international success. And a friend of mine once claimed that every type of food is enhanced by the addition of bacon, including ice cream. (Although I did manage to give her pause with my suggestion of bacon-flavored water.) So I’m thinking I’m going to have to give the new experiment a try. You only live once.
September 18th, 2007 at 10:29 am
It’s just wrong on so many levels. I am pretty open to “new” food combinations but this one doesn’t work IMHO.
e.
September 18th, 2007 at 11:03 am
HOLY COW. I love bacon chocolate. I have mixed bacon and chocolate milk, brownies with bacon, and even cheesecake with oreo-bacon crust, dried bananas with bacon, everything. And just recently somebody came out with BaconSalt. I have been putting it on every single bit of food I can find!
September 18th, 2007 at 11:31 am
I’ve had it – and it’s not bad. Salty and sweet is hard to do wrong. Now, it wouldn’t be my first choice… but I wouldn’t turn it down. Sean – a certain former radio host claims to have once made bacon ice cream.
September 18th, 2007 at 11:33 am
This I will buy!
And bacon-flavored water is okay. Maybe it would be better with bacon-flavored ice cubes?
September 18th, 2007 at 11:58 am
I’ll have the bacon, eggs, bacon, bacon, bacon, bacon, bacon, chocolate, bacon, bacon and bacon.
That’s not got much bacon in it.
September 18th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
This definitely goes on my to-buy list. Their “Barcelona bar,” with almonds and sea salt, is perhaps my favorite candy bar of all time. (For just pure, straight-up chocolate, I also love the bars from Pralus.)
September 18th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
Bacon would go much better with dark chocolate. Frankly, everything should either be eaten with either bacon or dark chocolate.
September 18th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
I love the idea of bacon chocolate. I’ve had chocolate with chili, and that is also delicious. Here in England there is a famous restaurant (the fat duck by Hester Blumenthal) that serves bacon-and-eggs ice cream. Never had it myself, but I am told it is superb.
September 18th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
There’s also Bacon Toffee, and I look forward to making some soon. =)
September 18th, 2007 at 3:41 pm
[...] (Via Cosmic Variance.) [...]
September 18th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
Well, I know a guy who puts ketchup on vanilla ice cream, so I suppose I can’t get very outraged over this. Just a little bit, maybe.
Salt goes well in chocolate, and bacon is salty. You could also probably use the bacon to mute out some of the more pointedly sweet characteristics, giving a richer undertone.
But it smells like gimmick marketing to me.
September 18th, 2007 at 6:09 pm
Sounds yummy to me. Really, bacon does make everything better. For me, anyway.
Vosges is terrific! I recently bought the Vosges Black Pearl bar, and I’ve been savoring it one square at a time. Ginger, wasabi, black sesame seeds, and dark chocolate. Unusual, and delicious.
And though I can lay claim to having once said to you that everything is enhanced with bacon, and even later on forwarding an article about bacon ice cream, I realize that I may not be the only friend of yours who may have done so. But I will take some of the credit, as I remember the bacon-flavored water idea. It was nifty, in a Willy Wonka kinda way.
Go ahead, get the bacon chocolate bar. You know you want to. : )
Your food scientist/sensory scientist friend,
Athena
September 18th, 2007 at 6:29 pm
I’d probably eat it. It certainly is an interesting new way to be non kosher. Heck my favorite ice cream flavor at the local creamery is “french toast”, which you have to try to appreciate.
September 18th, 2007 at 6:37 pm
The evil geniuses over at Portland’s infamous Voodoo Doughnut have had a fair amount of success with their Maple Bacon Bar, which is just an otherwise normal maple bar with a couple strips of bacon on it.
It’s not on their online menu right now, unfortunately, though it’s worth a read:
http://voodoodoughnut.com/menu.html
Voodoo Doughnut first gained media fame when the FDA sanctioned them for unauthorized dispension of medication, namely the unspeakably vile Nyquil Doughnut. Yes, really.
Look around that website some, including the FAQ. Great place.
September 18th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
“You only live once”
A strange statement from someone who believes in an infinite universe!
September 18th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
Looks to me like it’s time to get your cholesterol checked.
How many pigs died for your candy bar? Hmm? First that gas-guzzling girl-car, and now this?
September 18th, 2007 at 9:44 pm
Sean, go to the caltech club fair, and find the meat club’s space, their should be baconated icecream(vanilla) there and yes it is delicious. The fair should be sometime around the start of first term.
September 18th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
Does anyone else remember the episode of the Simpsons where Homer prayed to God for a new kind of snack and was rewarded with a bacon truck crashing into a tanker of hot fudge?
September 18th, 2007 at 10:32 pm
I’m a huge fan of the Vosges bacon bar… and your blog. Delighted that the two collided.
September 19th, 2007 at 8:47 am
Re: maple+bacon
This is a pretty common combo, at least in the parts of New England I frequent. A yummy way of rendering it, astonishing for the results, considering the simplicity of the prep., is to fry thick bacon up per normal, lay it out flat on a cookie sheet, drench it all with maple syrup, and bake it in the oven until it has the desired texture.
Speaking of cookie sheets…say you made morsels out of the chocobaconbar, and dumped ‘em in your Toll House Cookie dough? Good idea?
Oh, oh! Here’s another: “Hey! You got your Bacon Bar in my peanut butter! Well you got your peanut butter on my Bacon Bar!” Two great tastes…?
September 19th, 2007 at 8:59 am
More than anything else, I find the idea of a bacon chocolate bar disturbing. I can kind of see how the sweet/salty thing would be good, but…I just can’t get over it.
Something about mixing meat and milk chocolate…I’m with Elliot — it’s just wrong. At the very least, it isn’t kosher!
September 19th, 2007 at 9:38 am
Re: Stanton (#18)
The quote you’re looking for is — “Move over eggs, bacon just got a new best friend… fudge!”
September 19th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
Thanks kat,
I thought I was going to be the lone voice of reason here.
Dark chocolate and roasted almonds. by all means. (organic and fair trade of course.)
e.
Sean can’t even think about a global warming post after this and the Jaguar.
September 19th, 2007 at 9:24 pm
I once thought bacon went with everything too. In fact, I went to Pike Place in Seattle and purchased some bacon salt because I thought bacon flavor would go good with anything…
Needless to say, bacon does NOT go with everything. For me at least, I’ll stick to the proven bacon formulas.
September 24th, 2007 at 7:46 am
I JUST bought this and BOY HOWDY is it scrumptious. The smokiness of the salt and bacon only intensifies the creaminess and dark sweetness of the chocolate. TRY IT!!!
September 24th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
How about tobacco-flavored chocolate? A few days ago, I saw a show on the PBS “extra channel” (the hi-def one that parallels the regular broadcast – not accessible by old fashioned analog TVs) about Bruges, the wonderful colorful old city in Belgium. You know they are known for chocolate. Well, the girl at the counter offered the host “Cuban-cigar flavored chocolate.” (!) Not only a weird chocolate, but a bit of political challenge to US policy as well. The host thought it was interesting, and tasted reasonably authentic, but not sure if “good.” Of course the chocolate couldn’t have much real tobacco extract in it, since oral ingestion of even the nicotine in one cigarette is very toxic.
BTW, many of you might want to see the premier of “Big Bang Theory” tonight, 8:30 PM on CBS. It’s about a couple of physics students who can “… tell their quarks from their quantum physics, but have no clue how women add up. Leave it to their pretty new neighbor, just off a messy breakup, to teach them a thing or two.” Well, let’s hope she’s bright too.
September 26th, 2007 at 10:55 am
“People so concerned about whether they could, they never stopped to think if they should. ”
A poorly paraphrased quote from Jurassic Park.
October 25th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
[...] bacon. Seriously. Everyone knows that everything goes better with bacon. Take a food that’s never seen bacon (to your knowledge, because it’s [...]
December 11th, 2008 at 7:18 am
Sounds more like a little treat you would feed your dog. Now that chocolate with 24K edible gold sounds quite interesting, but a bit pointless.
August 28th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
my boyfriend bought me a bar and i’ve actually tried it. it’s VERY good and i cant wait to get another one :3