You don’t often hear me say something negative about American food culture, but here is one of my major complaints… There are a lot of us who don’t “love food” as much as we just “love to eat.”

The issue is the "quantity over quality" trend. There’s a tendency to take foods or beverages that are considered luxurious or high-quality in their original form and then adapting them to fit larger portion sizes. However, this enlargement doesn't necessarily enhance the overall experience or quality of the food or drink.

For example, are you familiar with the “americano” style coffee? In this case, the original espresso (a concentrated and flavorful coffee) is diluted with water to create a larger volume. While this increases the quantity, it might compromise the rich taste and mouthfeel that the espresso offers. The emphasis shifts from the unique qualities of a well-brewed espresso to a larger, but potentially less satisfying, beverage.

Similarly—and here’s the main point I’m making with this article—American hot chocolate just can’t compare to French hot chocolate. The drink transforms from a rich, decadent treat into a larger but less intense version. The original, smaller portion of French hot chocolate is crafted for a more indulgent experience, whereas the American adaptation prioritizes quantity over the depth of flavor and richness.

Why do we do this?

The American way of supersizing isn’t all bad. It reflects a certain level of thrift, which is iconic of a country that pulled itself up by its bootstraps to become the leading economic, political, and military world power.

The “bigness” that we associate with American food is great for two reasons: it feeds a lot more people, and it dilutes bad ingredients. This can be a great thing when you’re on a budget but still have mouths to feed. It’s also a good option when the quality of available ingredients isn’t up to snuff.

However, what if in our thrift, we’ve lost the essence of what has made some foods iconic in the first place? In certain cases, American food culture prioritizes quantity and size over the nuanced and intricate flavors that can be found in smaller, more traditionally crafted portions.

With all that being said, let’s try something special together.

The Ultimate Hot Chocolate

The recipe I’m about to share teaches one important lesson: with some ingredients, quality is everything. I present to you two different hot chocolates:

• A big-business chocolatier—let’s call him Hershal Nelson—wants to spread chocolate to the entire world. They pool the most affordable strands of cocoa from hundreds of different vendors and mix them all together in a big vat. The final product isn’t very good, but it still has some vague “chocolateness” that gets the job done. Now Hershal just adds plenty of hot water. Oh, but all that dried up cocoa is clumping together and going bad, so now Hershal adds preservatives, emulsifiers and anticoagulants. This damages the flavor even more, but Hershal can fix it with table sugar.
• Francis from down the street has been cultivating the same cocoa trees for twenty years. He just finished crafting a batch of chocolate from his very own trees, and he’s going to enjoy it with some fresh bread for breakfast tomorrow morning.

I’m not going to paint Hershal as a bad guy here… but if I get a chance to go have breakfast with Francis, I’m taking that chance. And once I’ve taken that chance often enough, Hershal’s treats just don’t taste the same anymore.

Of course, the downside to high-quality chocolate is it costs a lot more. A bar of Hershey’s milk chocolate is about a dollar. Your average bar of single-source chocolate is about ten dollars. That is a lot more expensive! But it’s 100% worth it because you don’t need as much. I make a ten-dollar bar of chocolate last for weeks because every bite is decadent and satisfying. Whereas a bar of Hershey’s chocolate disappears in about a minute, and just leaves you wanting more chocolate.

I’m sorry if I’m getting intense here. If you read my last article on chocolate, you know I take this stuff a little too seriously.

Here’s the end of it: when you make good hot chocolate, it starts with good chocolate. Go read the article I linked above if you want help finding good chocolate. It’s that simple!

Without further ado, I present to you the most luxurious drink you can ever have:



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    Matthew Christensen
    Weekly Newsletter Contributor since 2023
    Email the author! matthew@dvo.com