Dan Morris: An egg-cellent time to be alive

I’ve never been a big chocolate guy, not really anyway. Though I do sometimes wonder if this was how I trained myself to be simply due the lack of a chance at developing a taste for the stuff.

The last time I genuinely remember eating a genuine Easter egg (and thanks for the wine by the way, Old Man) I was about 14 years old.

My mum – a self-confessed chocoholic in her day, God rest her soul – always made an annual point of emptying the shelves in Thorntons with ruthless abandon, turning the dining room at the family pile into a pirate’s hoard of confectionery. 

The official line she always gave was that at least two of the 10 trillion eggs clustered on the table were for my father and me, yet strangely these always seemed to be the first ones she’d guzzle down come the day of resurrection itself.

Some 23 years ago I managed to taste the sweet and smooth nectar of a finely fashioned white chocolate orb, yet in the two decades that followed, my speed to the stash was always thwarted by my mother’s, and only a fool would dare take a chance at trapping off with an ‘unassigned’ egg from among the dragon’s booty.

It would have been akin to Indiana Jones picking the wrong Holy Grail, and over the years I’d seen my mother kill for a lot less.

With my sweet tooth therefore long since numbed, I haven’t, even in the years since my mother’s passing, been particularly tempted towards the standard fare of Easter gluttony that so many love to revel in. 

But of course, now there is another set of sweet teeth in the house, and their owner has very much inherited an insatiable ‘choco-lust’ from both her own mother and mine.

At the start of the year I moaned on this very page about the ridiculousness of Easter eggs already being on shop shelves in January.

It is with no small touch of irony then that this week I have been a flabbergasted mess, dashing between every supermarket in the land in an attempt to score a stash for my sproglet at the very last minute.

Bad daddy. Be prepared. Do better next year. 

Luckily, Grandad has resolutely come to the rescue and, along with a lovely drop of vino for moi, has secured a handsome egg – replete with an iced pink unicorn – for his little princess. Anyone with experience of any of the planet’s two-and-a-half-year-old girls will know that a pink unicorn very rarely fails, so I suspect Grandad will be now be her favourite person on the third rock from the sun for quite some time.

As I say, I’m not really a cocoa sort of bloke. But one thing that I do remember is the weird yet universal truth that Easter eggs taste better than any other chocolate. It’s true, right? But why on Earth is this?

Years ago I remember hearing that this was to do with a particular ingredient that was added to help Easter eggs retain their shape during setting. This sounded plausible to me, and as such I’ve never really questioned it. But if this is true, why don’t the wonderful wizards of Cadbury and the like simply add the same ingredient to their bars, thus ensuring the undeniable superior taste of their chocolate all year round? No doubt I could have Googled this, but where’s the fun in that? If any sorcerers of confectionery from big companies or small want to get in touch to delve into the truth about Easter egg taste with me, I’d be absolutely delighted to hear from you (and, needless to say, sample your wares). This is an invitation to all chocolatiers of the land – a reverse golden ticket, if you will – to bring the party to the paper and let us celebrate your genius.

As my daughter will tell you, and as her grandmother would happily have backed up, to many people chocolate is for life; not just for Jesus.

Give me a shout at [email protected], and we’ll see how you can become the chocolate king or queen of this fair publication, and get your wonderful creations in front of the attention of the masses as the Willy Wonka of the West Midlands and Shropshire.

To everyone else, have a wonderful Easter weekend, and enjoy that bit of extra sugar – you’ve earned it, especially if you had the foresight to buy it in January. 

If, however, you’re looking for something a bit stronger, you’re welcome to chance dropping me a line on the above email address. There’s merlot aplenty at Morris Manor – though this is dragon’s booty you definitely disturb at your peril…