Dutch Girl’s exquisite Kama Sutra chocolates are based on erotic Hindu stone carvings.

Eye Candy

There is more to chocolate’s sensual pleasures than meets the eye. But first, this food of love still has to meet the eye

by BEVERLY CRAMP

When dealing with matters of the stomach, what the eye sees is as crucial as what the tongue tastes. This old adage has Vancouver chocolatiers preparing special Valentine’s Day chocolates that look as good as they taste.

“The eye wants something too,” says Alexandra Temple, founder of Dutch Girl Chocolates, which opened 12 year ago on Commercial Drive. Temple’s hand-made chocolates come in a wide range of traditional and contemporary designs: from naturalistic chocolate-covered, liqueur-dipped cherries sitting in gold foil to minimalist cubes.

Some specialized designs are kept out of sight in the back of the store. “We make Kama Sutra-inspired chocolates as well as more explicit shapes. We call the explicit shapes ‘the body parts.’ I keep the body parts and Kama Sutra chocolates out of sight because we get school children in our store. We put up a sign to let adults know that they have to ask.”

Dutch Girl’s Kama Sutra chocolates are exquisite representations of erotic Hindu stone carvings found in some temples, particularly the Sun Temple in Konark, a small town on the Bay of Bengal. The Sun Temple’s amorous shapes are derived from the Kama Sutra writings about love-making and inspired the famous Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore to write of Konark: “Here the language of stone surpasses the language of man.” As for “the body parts,” the inspiration for these chocolate forms can be seen in just about any North American sex shop.

A heart-within-a-heart design is a specialty of Mink Chocolates in downtown Vancouver. Mink sells it in a line of chocolates called “Love Potion 2.0” along with a seasonal, exclusive “Romeo & Juliet” chocolate bar, donating five per cent of sales to the Downtown Eastside charity Beauty Night Vancouver (see page 16). “Valentine’s Day is when couples get to celebrate all the good things about being together,” says Mink founder Marc Lieberman. “Every month our chosen charity changes and we picked Beauty Night for February because they work for women in Vancouver who are disenfranchised.”

CocoaNymph Chocolates blends classic flavours with fun contemporary aesthetics. “Our designs are all one-inch square chocolates, beautifully decorated, from the austerity of a single pink peppercorn to hand-painted cocoa butter palettes of colour,” says Rachel Sawatzky who opened a chocolate business at the corner of Tenth and Alma one year ago with long-time friend Kirk Hutton. Their chocolates also are at Urban Fare stores and Edible British Columbia.

What would a good-looking Valentine’s Day chocolate be without a heart-shaped box or frilly wrapping? According to Sawatzky, who looks after the creative side of CocoaNymph while Hutton takes care of the business end, there are other considerations.

“Packaging is important but we consider the environment first. We have in place several refillable containers that customers can bring back to refill with their favourite products or re-use in their home. We also wrap our bars in traditional foil and paper wrap, eschewing the current trend of dressing up a chocolate bar in a cardboard box – less is more, of course.”

CocoaNymph chocolates have their own special poetry says Sawatzky. “All of our chocolates have fun names and they tell a story. Our store is all about stories – our story and our customer’s stories. I have often played Cupid for guys who really want to impress their partners. I’ve gotten good at spotting the man who is buying the ‘I’m sorry’ chocolates.”

For the stomach, the eye, or any other body part, ask a chocolatier. mv