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I’ve recently become aware of a shift in my dessert preferences from those made with chocolate to those made with fruit.  Being the culinary anthropologist that I am, I’ve spent some time thinking about how and when my pendulum might have begun to swing.

Like anyone with a uterus, I have always held chocolate on the pedestal it belongs —  right between lycra and Jesus.  Then I started to notice that oatmeal raisin began to sound better than chocolate chip cookies, the pear tart outshined the chocolate cake, a slice of apple pie with ice-cream talked to me louder than the chocolate cake and so on.

Addressing this from a methodical angle, I tried to recall a relatively recent memory of when I felt enthusiastic about a fruit dessert and wham-o!, the image almost knocked me over.  I’d just had our first child and was home from the hospital with this brand-spanking new little cherub with absolutely no idea what to do with it and more importantly, how to not irreversibly damage it.  Just as my husband left (gulp) to go to work, Mom showed up to stay with us during the day, as was to be our routine that first week.  In my thirty years, I had never been so filled with love, appreciation, relief and joy to see her.  Help was there and she came baring a pecan-date bundt cake like a little life preserver between her two capable hands.

Maybe it’s true that our tastes change as we get older and I’m just experiencing some palatal changes because of it.  Or maybe it’s not our tastes that change so much as our appreciation of the memories tied to the more traditional fares.  Not able to afford to buy presents for everyone, my grandmother would put a little money aside each Christmas to buy a few coconuts.  She’d extract every sliver and flake of the white pulp to make coconut pies and a towering six-layer coconut cake.  She’d reserve the milk to mix with sweet potatoes, raisins and molasses for a special holiday side dish.  When I see the coconuts in the grocery stores around the holidays I am instantly transported to her kitchen where I’d sit and watch her whittle away at her cherished little coconuts.

I can’t look at a banana pudding without thinking of my Aunt June (or the fact that my uncle always wanted it made with those rectangle coconut cookies instead of vanilla wafers but that’s a whole other story) or smell an apple pie without thinking of my mom’s.  Blackberry cobblers conjure up memories of dodging snakes off the clay banks of the dirt road my cousins and I used to pick pails full of berries on.  It was a pineapple dump cake made with a small box of Jiffy cake mix that my retired neighbor brought over when I was having a really rough day.  I don’t remember what was so bad about that day anymore but I remember that the little white corningware dish filled with golden friendship made it seem a lot less wretched.

As long as I have 3 PM energy lulls, mood swings and watch sad movies, chocolate will always have a special place in my life but I think my heart now lives in a sweet spot somewhere between a pecan-date cake and apple pie à la mode.

1. Jennifer Harjehausen says:

   December 2, 2009 at 12:32 am

   I think my heart’s favorite will always be chocolate. Hot fudge sundaes remind me of trips to Baskin Robbins with my dad, chocolate cake with chocolate frosting reminds me of the way the hospital cake hit the spot after having my first baby, and nothing goes better with a movie than popcorn with plain M&Ms.

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2. Terri Evans says:

   December 2, 2009 at 8:56 am

   Mandy, I feel your conflict. Torn at times by citrus, in particular (key-lime pie, lemon tarts, etc), I feel as if I’m betraying my old friend, chocolate. Wouldn’t you know that this would happen right about the time that chocolate is flaunting health and antioxidant claims? I suspect that’s the real issue here – it’s become too healthy!

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3. Mary Lee (aka Bootsie Lucas) says:

   December 2, 2009 at 10:03 am

   Is it possible that the real polarization in our country isn’t liberal vs. conservative, but chocolate or not?

   The wonderful thing about chocolate (besides the fact that it’s a mood elevator ) is that you can have just a teensy bit from an excellent bar or brownie and get that zing that chocolate brings. Or you can just tip the Hershey’s syrup can up and take a swig. I love Key Lime pie, but you have to bake (or buy) the whole darn thing. Sure, there are smaller lemon tarts, but can you actually keep one in your purse when you’re running errands just so you can have a nibble to perk you up? A chocolate bar is portable and will get past security at the airport. You can’t say that about an apple pie. And chocolate comes in various strengths: milk, dark, and super dark. (There is no such thing as white chocolate.) For true chocolate fiends, I’d recommend our family favorite: Green & Black’s Organic Dark Chocolate with 85 percent cocoa content. I’ll bet even fruit dessert lovers can’t eat just one.

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4. Mandy Richburg Rivers says:

   December 2, 2009 at 3:53 pm

   Oh Bootsie, I’m glad I’m not the only one that’s ever taken a haul off the Hershey’s! Nothing goes better with that dollop of peanut butter you just scooped from the jar with your pointer finger at 2AM.

   Don’t get me wrong, I still love chocolate, the darker the better, but as for prepared desserts, I’ve strayed. (disclaimer: any and all comments as per dessert preferences do not include the mother of all desserts, chocolate cheesecake. Chocolate cheesecake cannot be categorized merely as a dessert as it can be used as a medication or meal substitute, is preferred over sex on many occasions and can lead to intoxication when thrown on the floor and rolled in.)

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5. Janet Ward says:

   December 9, 2009 at 2:55 pm

   Oh, Lordy, this is one of those things that I felt instinctively but never thought of writing about! I am not a sweets person, as a matter of taste. Give me a choice between a cookie and a pretzel, and, well, I’ll take the pretzel. But I always maintained that I would eat anything, cat shit included, if it were dipped in chocolate. Over the past several years, I have found my tastes changing. Now, give me the apple pie or the blackberry cobbler or the lemon tart.

   There has to be a scientific explanation, and I will volunteer to be the experimentee.

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6. Steve Krodman says:

   December 10, 2009 at 1:11 pm

   The wonderful thing about chocolate is that you can drift over to the citrus, the coconut, and all those other wonderful flavors… and chocolate will still be there when you decide to come back.

   Alas, I love desserts in all their wonderful variety. (Alas is for the tendency of said desserts to apply themselves to my… alas.) Chocolate, fruit, it matters not – I can usually find a place in my heart (and on my plate) for most postprandial sweets. Which one I may prefer at any given moment is purely a function of my vast and changeable whim.

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