Holiday Tour Day 14: Dirtbags Through the Ages and Chocolate Conspiracy
Something wicked this way melts...
WARNING: Scrolling past the first line of this post may take you down a rabbit hole too slippery to come out of. You may also get accused of preferring real artisan chocolate to the junk candy disseminated by the big commercial brands, and pay the higher price for quality and taste you didn’t realize you needed.
Alright, well, you scrolled past the first line, so you’re in for it. The only thing that can save you now is to acquire your Cacao Muse membership. It will weave an invisible flavor cloak around you so that you may pass through Dirtbag Nation undetected.
First, a word from our sponsor, The Flat Bar Society.
The Earth is flat and rectangular and it rotates around an axis defined by an activated 10-million-year-old cacao seed. Its core is made not of iron or nickel, as the Scientists of the Establishment have been trying to brainwash us into believing, but hot Maya chocolate. You see, contained within the Earth’s mantle, the chocolate never gets cold, and because the Maya had spiced it with achiote and chili and blessed it with shamanic incantations, it has churned perpetually hot since the ancient times.
Welcome to the Flat Bar Society. If you would like to join, please email us. Do not subscribe to The Cacao Muse, as your mind might become spoilt with decadent and false ideas about eating chocolate, which only endangers the supply that powers the Earth’s core. There is a limited supply of hot chocolate on our planet, and we must protect it at all costs.
We are the Flat Bar Society, and we do not drink the chocolate that sustains us. Join us in our sacrifice!
TCM Holiday Tour Day 14 pairing:
DIRTBAGS THROUGH THE AGES and CHOCOLATE CONSPIRACY
A novelist who writes about the dirtbags and scoundrels of history, and a chocolate company that plays into our darkest fantasies? A pairing made in heaven hell (purgatory??) if you ask me.
Disclaimer 1: I did not pay the founders of Chocolate Conspiracy, nor help them with their branding.
Disclaimer 2: I did not know Allison prior to Substack. I hold the entirety of the Substack team fully responsible for my admiration of her work.
Disclaimer 3: I cannot be held liable for potentially tainted photographic evidence presented herein, final decisions of the Court, or anything that happens as a result of this pairing. If the Earth tilts off its cacao axis, you can have your money back from our sponsor.
Please welcome
and .
The Cacao Muse: The Cacao Court shall come to order! [bangs gavel]. The Court welcomes Allison of Epstein. We understand you are the Queen of the Scoundrels of History.
Allison of Epstein: Yes, your Cacao Honor. I’m the writer behind Dirtbags Through the Ages, a Substack that profiles historical figures I personally find interesting, goofy, despicable, or whose stories make me say “Oh my God, the audacity of this bitch” at least once. Memes abound, I swear a lot, and—
TCM: We shall ask you to refrain from saucy language. Only chocolatey language is allowed in this courtroom.
Allison: I understand, your Honor.
TCM: Will you “always accept the most scandalous possible explanation as if it is certified and guaranteed fact”?
Allison: I will, and I do, your Honor.
TCM: May we please have your evidence proving said claim of your Dirtbag heritage.
[Queen Allison presents the Cacao Muse with a life-size doctored replica of the above painting (Exhibit A)]
Allison: Whenever I’m asked to share an image that represents what Dirtbags Through the Ages is all about, I go back to my favorite painting in all of art history: this artistic rendering of the time—a 9th-century pope put a dead body on trial for treason. The dead body was found guilty and sentenced to death.
Boss Cat: Objection, your Honor!
TCM: On what gourds, Cat Counsel?
Boss Cat: May it please the court, this is not just a “dead body.” This is the dried-out shell of my ancestor Pope Formosus-Cat. He was cut down in the prime of his life for fighting to protect heirloom cacao groves against the colonial forces. I stand here ready to defend his honor and his legacy. The Queen of Scoundrels shall be my witness.
TCM: Very well, Counsel, but you shall have to wait your turn. We are now proceeding with proof of the Queen’s queenliness.
Boss Cat: Mew, your Honor. [Boss Cat sits and flicks his tail impatiently]
[Birgitte the Court Reporter is feverishly taking notes]
TCM [to Allison]: Please proceed. What proof have you of the impact of your dastardly work on your unsuspecting audience?
Allison: Popular past issues of my Substack include Messy Gay Disaster King James VI/I of Scotland/England, Whip-Wielding Dancing Scammer Lola Montez, Sassy Australian Outback Horse Pirate Ned Kelly, and many others. I also talk about my historical fiction novels, but only sometimes. [Turns to the audience] If this sounds like fun to you, you can join Dirtbag Nation at—
TCM: Please no promotions at this time. We shall have a link for you at the conclusion of this hearing. Our next question concerns your preference for chocolate. Please be aware the final verdict will hinge entirely on your reply.
Allison: Your Honor, I’ll start this with a caveat: I buy most of my chocolate from Walgreens, so most likely my taste is not to be trusted.1 However! My editor sent me a bag of L.A. Burdick dark drinking chocolate last Christmas, and I felt like a queen every time I made myself a cup. This might have had a lot to do with the tiny whisk that came with the bag, which delighted me. But that’s my new treat to weather the Chicago winters, especially with a shot of Bailey’s added.2
Boss Cat: Your Honor, I fear this Queen might be an impostor. The real Queen of Scoundrels only eats artisan chocolate from the original cacao dirtbags, Chocolate Conspiracy.
[Cries of Impostor! and No she’s the real deal! erupt]
[The Courtroom goes berserk; general brawl ensues. People push over chairs, spill cups of hot chocolate on each other, and in general behave like the scoundrels they are deep inside.]
Allison [shouting through the noise]: Stop! I have so many questions! about this William Hogarth drawing of a chocolate house, not least of which is “Can someone please make sure that dog doesn’t get any chocolate?” I am concerned about the welfare of that good boy!
Boss Cat: Why just dog? Cats too. Do you not care about cats?
Birgitte: There are no cats in the drawing.
Boss Cat: There are. Only you cannot see them yet.
[Suddenly the Courtroom goes dead silent. Not a peep, not a mew. You can hear a cacao bean drop. A shadowy figure enters.]
[The Grim Blackberry Ginger Reaper moves silently past the Queen, past the Boss Cat, and sits down in the front row. Doesn’t say a word.]
TCM: Queen Allison. You may continue with your questions. What would you like to ask the experts?
Allison: This is an extremely niche curiosity, but I’m a history blogger and my whole shtick is bringing people along on my niche interests, so: I really want to talk to someone who knows a lot about the chocolate houses of 18th-century Europe. I’m working on a historical novel right now set in early 19th-century London, and I spent a lot of time researching what kinds of public places would be available for my characters to hang out in. You know, what’s the 1820s equivalent of the 1998 mall food court?
Most of the answers involved gin, as it turned out, which suited my purposes fine. But to my surprise, people would also hang out at chocolate houses, where they would apparently drink hot chocolate and chat about the Enlightenment.
This wildly charming fact has stuck in my brain, and I want to know what the vibes were like in these establishments, what kinds of conversations one might have overheard, how different historical chocolate would have tasted from modern chocolate and why... The fact that there isn’t a bestselling series of cozy historical mysteries about a widow who owns a chocolate house and solves murders with help from Samuel Pepys is stunning to me. Imagine the pun titles one could come up with.
[The Grim Blackberry Ginger Reaper—let’s call him Blackberry Ginger for short—stares at the Queen, fixates his gaze on her. She stares right back at him, undeterred; he glances away, intimidated.]
TCM: The Court shall now recess for a Chocolate Tasting. All rise and do not chew!
Chocolate: Blackberry Ginger
Percentage: 73%3
Origin: Ucayali region, Perú
Ingredients: Raw organic cacao beans, raw organic cacao butter, raw unfiltered honey, blackberry ginger balsamic vinegar, organic ginger oil4
Price: $10.00
Tasting Notes Verdict: Not the finest smoothness, the chocolate not particularly flavorful. It’s a touch gritty. We do love the hints of rosemary, tannins from the wine and grape must, and a barely-there zing of ginger. That oatmeal-like texture of unroasted chocolate lingers on long after the chocolate has melted.
TCM: [bangs gavel] The Court now resumes the proceedings. Given there is no jury in a Cacao Court, we have reached the verdict. [clears throat] We sentence this bar to 3.5 points out of 5.
[Upon hearing this, Blackberry Ginger folds over in visible pain, and crumples to the ground in a heap of softened chocolate.]
Blackberry Ginger: But Your Honor, we are RAW! We did all the right things. We source directly from the farmers—and many of them are native Achaninka! The beans are certified organic, certified fair trade, and certified kosher. Also, non-GMO and non-hybridized. We don’t roast our beans. We use only the best ingredients.
[wailing] We are not Big Chocolate! How could you? This is betrayal!!
[Allison of Epstein looks on regally, enjoying the spectacle]
Boss Cat: May I respond, your Honor?
TCM: Proceed, Counsel. [to Blackberry Ginger:] Please pull yourself together, you are in a Court of Cacao Law.
[Blackberry Ginger makes a reconstitution attempt, and stands up straight. His edges are not as neatly hexagonal as before, but it’s palatable.]
Boss Cat [to Blackberry Ginger]: This is not a death sentence Blackberry. You just need to pass the micron test. We can help you. But you’ll need to swear fealty to my family line.
[Walks over to Blackberry and passes him a note that says, Meet me behind the blackberry bush tomorrow at 3pm.]
TCM: There will be no conspiracies fermented in our courtroom! Counsel, please step away from the defendant.
[Boss Cat walks off, winking at Blackberry Ginger.]
TCM [to Allison]: Allison of Epstein. We are sufficiently convinced of your Dirtbag heritage. You may have the last word in this Proceeding. Given your power as the Queen of Scoundrels, what would you have your minions do to right the wrongs of Big Chocolate?
Allison: The real problem always comes down to capitalism and colonialism, doesn’t it? If I could snap my fingers and create an equitable and sustainable chocolate industry that adapted to the needs of climate change and prioritized the well-being of individual growers and makers rather than exploitative mega-corporations, that would be ideal.
On a slightly smaller scale—and yes, I’m cheating by answering twice5—I would love if the marketing behemoth behind chocolate could divorce itself from gender and sexuality. Sell me food. Don’t sell me a sexy indulgence I can eat in a low-cut red dress while sashaying out of a party my rich husband brought me to, or an emotional feminine comfort product I can mainline curled up with a heating pad while on my period. Gender-neutral chocolate 2024.
TCM: Now that’s some saucy chocolatey language! The Cacao Court shall now adjourn.
We close with a final word from our sponsor, The Flat Bar Society. (By the way, Flat Bar peeps, your check bounced. You’ll need to pay us in craft chocolate blocks.)
We haven’t had anyone join our illustrious Society yet, which we ascribe to the riotous courtroom scene that just took place. We would like to remind you that our Society works tirelessly to promote protect the concept of a flat bar Earth, which is the raw and unfermented truth.
We would like to take this opportunity to share with you that The Cacao Muse purposely shut us out of the court proceedings. We have totally incontrovertible proof that the Queen of Scoundrels is more suspect than any of the other characters here, and that she is in fact the primary force behind the anti-Flat Bar movement. Her secret ally is AJ Wentworth, the founder of the suspiciously branded company Chocolate Conspiracy. Here is his photo, which we wanted to bring in as an Exhibit to the Court.
Next to his photo is an image from the Sacred Book of the Maya, the Popol Vuh. That is the head of Hun Hunahpu, the father of the Hero Twins who vanquish the Lords of Death in the Underworld. See how the head sprouts from the cacao tree? Well, look at AJ’s head, also sprouting from a cacao tree. That large cacao leaf in front makes you think he has a body, but no. That leaf hides the fact that AJ is the current reincarnation of Hun Hunahpu. That is the sacred Truth, and we refuse to be silenced!
Also, we wrote all the footnotes on this post, because someone needs to keep the Truth strong and dark.
COMING UP! DAY 15 of the TCM HOLIDAY TOUR
Stay tuned for Part II of the Cacao Games! Although, it may never come, of course, because our production budget will probably be stolen by the Queen’s pirates.
In lieu of that, we’ll go to the movies tomorrow, and use all of our seven senses to experience it.
Do not believe a word of this line. Someone who writes about dirtbags and claims to get her chocolate from Walgreens clearly has something up her sleeve. There is no chocolate in Walgreens—only candy bars parading as real chocolate.
You see, it’s already starting. A shot of Bailey’s. With hot chocolate. Yep, that’s how it starts, folks. You might want to pour yourself one just to survive this post.
Be wary! This chocolate might not be who they say they are. This is an unusual cacao percentage. No one does 73%. The standard is 70%. Why deviate from long-established standards unless you have an ulterior motive for your cacao? They must be hiding something.
Further evidence of spuriosity. “Raw chocolate” is an oxidized moron, er, oxymoron. TCM has already explained why chocolate cannot be technically raw. The only thing raw here should be the Truth!
This is a direct admission of guilt! Let the record show that Queen Allison of Epstein said “I’m cheating.” She also answers twice, which proves beyond a reasonable doubt that her intentions here are duplicitous.
I wish more courtroom proceedings went like this. And had chocolate.
Phew, what a ride this was! I signed up to Dirtbags on the strength of that interview!