random poll

[ratcreature]

Most people think chocolate and nuts go well together, but which nut do you think fits chocolate best? (Today when I decided to buy some chocolate with nuts I dithered for minutes in front of the shelf over whether I ought to go with hazelnut or almond chocolate this time.)

I realize radio buttons make this hard when like me you like many nuts in chocolate, but you'll just have to pick a favorite. (Feel free to imagine the chocolate however you like it to best compliment the nuts, i.e. if you like for example hazelnuts best in milk chocolate but almonds in dark chocolate, imagine the combination you like better and then pick the kind of nut in the poll.)

Poll #6193 chocolate & nuts

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 51

View Respondents

Which nut do you like best with chocolate?

View Answers

None: Who would contaminate tasty chocolate with any nut?? (or nuts with chocolate)
5 (9.8%)

Hazelnuts
21 (41.2%)

Almonds
16 (31.4%)

Walnuts
1 (2.0%)

Pecans
2 (3.9%)

Macadamia
2 (3.9%)

Cashew
2 (3.9%)

Brazil nuts
0 (0.0%)

Pistachios
0 (0.0%)

Peanuts (counted as "nut" for the purposes of this poll despite being an undercover legume)
2 (3.9%)

some other nut you have forgotten
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[laurajv]

answering this poll took consulting my husband and arguing the merits of various chocolate-nut combos for several minutes, after which we agreed that Cote d'Or "Noir Noisettes" is the best chocolate-nut combination on the entire planet, and therefore the answer had to be "hazelnut".

(The runner-up was "almond", by the by; nothing else was even in the running.)

[ratcreature]

Hard choices to be made for this poll, certainly.

The results make me wonder though, why the peanuts-chocolate combination is idiomatic in the US, when it is not that popular compared to others. I had always sort of assumed that US people must like peanuts mixed with chocolate like hazelnuts are liked here, and yet it is not so.

[laurajv]

Peanuts are much cheaper here. I just looked up wholesale prices, and shelled roasted peanuts are less than half the price of shelled roasted almonds, and about a quarter of the price of shelled roasted hazelnuts. So they're put in all cheap chocolate, basically.

[ratcreature]

It's true here as well that peanuts are cheaper, though almonds are not that much cheaper than hazelnuts, but that doesn't make people like peanuts in chocolate any better. Even the very cheap, crappy chocolate bars for 0.35€/100g come with hazelnut pieces rather than peanuts. Only candy bars and M&M-like things seem to have peanuts in them.

[laurajv]

mostly that's what you get here, too: mass market candy bars with peanuts or peanut butter, or M&Ms. There's not much by way of good chocolate with peanuts in it -- it's just that there is SO MUCH chocolate with peanuts in it here that it gives the impression of great popularity, and...a lot of people don't have access to good chocolate, either.

Like, there are a lot of urban neighborhoods with extremely limited access to fresh food, and those neighborhoods have equally limited access to good chocolate.

[ratcreature]

I never quite understood how this lack of adequate grocery stores some urban areas in the US could happen. Here the problem with easy access to shopping and services is a rural one, because there are many fewer people so that a store can't get enough customers, and people end up needing cars for everything and life sucks if you don't have one. But in urban neighborhoods there are a lot of people after all, all of whom need food and want to buy it somewhere. Depending on the neighborhood here you may lack fancy choices, like butchers (many of those have gone out of business) or fishmongers (ditto) or other special stores, but I think it's rare to encounter an urban neighborhood so blighted that there isn't at least a discounter with a basic range of staples and the common fresh vegetables in a distance most people can walk with a couple of grocery bags.