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Comment by distantaidenn | Hacker News Reader

Or maybe some Americans just prefer the American version...the ones we grew up with.

Example, yeah I know our chocolate supposedly tastes like vomit to Europeans, but eh, it's what we know, and taste fine if you were raised with it.

Edit: This will probably elicit more ire, but I'm genuienly curious why this was downvoted? Is it because of the dislike of American chocolate, or the idea that some people (in this case Americans) like the food they were raised with?

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Most developed countries have great chocolate, the floor of chocolate from America is lower than the floor of European chocolate, even though the ceilings are about the same. So, on average, European chocolate is better.

Dunno how American chocolate tastes, but at some point there was something in the news saying that products containing zero cocoa can label themselves "chocolate" in the US so I'm not even willing to try. At least not the "popular" brands.

Not sure where you are getting your news, but it is not true. Many products-- like chocolate and ice cream-- have regulated definitions(1). You are allowed to call things "chocolate [noun]" (as in pudding) sometimes despite not being chocolate, but my reading of the rules(2) is that it must contain cocoa.

[1]: https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/retrieveECFR?gp=1&SID=fe2b45308...

[2]: https://www.fda.gov/regulatory-information/search-fda-guidan...

Random duckduckgo result:

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/cheap-chocolate-candy-m...

I remember seeing stuff like this since years ago.

Mind, it's not actually cocoa less, just not chocolate. At least in this article.

I think for most its because in America re: chocolate in particular, marketing and cheap filler-based products won out. A european company wouldn't make hershey's milk chocolate and call it chocolate bc its mostly sugar.

A European company is not _allowed_ to call it chocolate (in Europe). You need to have a minimum percentage of cacao and cacao butter. You are allowed to call it something else though.

Anybody who says US chocolate is terrible hasn't looked for anything beyond what a 7-11 would carry. Even Hershey's sells some great stuff under different brand names (like Dagoba).

American chocolate is like American beer. On some level everybody kind of knows that there are 100s of great American beers out there, but most people still instinctively think Bud Lite when they hear the phrase "American beer", and judges accordingly.

I was raised with it and I think Hershey's smells like dog poop.

So it's not just me! It's weird though, because I can still eat it no problem. One of those weird things like cheese where it smelling bad doesn't make it unappetizing.

You're talking to a man that loves him some natto and when I can get my hands on it: durian. Both can clear a room.

I can pretty much eat anything. But, I couldn't even get down one bite of stinky tofu when I was in Taiwan. It tastes exactly like it smells. Still waiting to try some surstromming.

> It tastes exactly like it smells.

Don't know if it will help you but I think the same thing of durian. It smells like rotten food and tastes like rotten food.

I think people have varying degree of sensitivity to the various compounds in the food and that another significant part of it is also linked to what you were exposed to while growing up and the association you made.

In my limited experience surströmming doesn’t taste as bad as it smells (it smells pretty bad). But, it doesn’t actually compensate by tasting good either. So I never saw any point eating it beyond the first try.

I eat it sometimes, but will never choose it if I have an option.

But yeah, for years now, I've been like, uh, people, this literally smells like dog poop, right? Does nobody notice this except me? A few years ago again mystified I googled it and found the butyric acid acid thing. Apparently people more often say "vomit" but to me it's definitely dog poop. SO WEIRD that now this scent/flavor has apparently become well-liked, that other chocolate manufacturers do it on purpose? Just weird. But yeah, people like what they like.

Hershey's is odd, but humans eat plenty of foods that taste or smell strange. Some of those are even considered delicacies. The biggest factor to if one likes them is growing up with it, but of course liking them is not a given.

(German) I didn't grow up with Hershey's but when I tried it, the traditional spoiled milk substance in it tasted like honey to me. And later I read that the substance is indeed found in honey. The honey taste is alright, it's a nice variety on chocolate taste. It's the rest of it that I find slightly subpar for the price - not terrible though. Maybe they sell a different recipe here.

There are high quality cheese that smell like old feet. My wife started out calling Locatelli (my favorite Pecorino Romano) "foot cheese".

> The compounds produced by the Limburger cheese are close enough to human body odor to confuse mosquitoes https://askentomologists.com/2015/09/10/mosquitoes-love-chee...

Just because something has a smell that is reminiscent of some other (unappatizing) thing, doesn't necessarily speak to how good it tastes.

I did outdoor ed and summer camps for decades, and I've never though Hersheys smelled like anything other than doo-doo.

Like actual doo-doo. I remember bringing it by a kybo and doing a smell compare. Yep. Doo-doo.

Its gross, nasty brown candle wax.

Holy crap (lol), I haven't heard the term KYBO used in 30+ years.

I think that's a bit reductionist. A Milka bar is not that different than a Hershey bar, and snobs turn up their nose at them in both continents.

I'm curious which part you consider reductionist. Also, American milk chocolate proper tastes like vomit to some Europeans/Aussies due to the butyric acid formed during the lipolysis phase of the milk fats. It's exactly that which gives American chocolate its unique (vomit-like) flavor.

Anecdotal, but I couldn't believe it when I heard people hated our chocolate, and asked my decidedly non-snobby English buds and my (non-American) fiancé, and they confirmed it tastes off to them, albeit palatable. However, Hershey's Kisses were a no-go for the fiancé.

Yeah, it's a genuinely different taste. I'm not a big fan of cheap chocolate from Europe or the US any more but I'm definitely more used to the Europe style than the US style. I also can't stand Kisses, they really do taste like they're a year past their best before date to me. All subjective though, isn't it.

Why are you using "American milk chocolate" as a synonym for "Hershey's"?

I mean...

If you had to pick a brand of chocolate to represent "American milk chocolate", would you pick anything but Hershey's?

Huh, I had no idea there was a real difference

> Also, American milk chocolate proper tastes like vomit to some Europeans/Aussies due to the butyric acid formed during the lipolysis phase of the milk fats. It's exactly that which gives American chocolate its unique (vomit-like) flavor.

American milk chocolate and American chocolate aren't the same thing.

Yeah, but American milk chocolate is American chocolate.

American chocolate is probably a bad example because what makes it bad is the lack of cocoa.

If we sold "American coffee" that was 99% chicory and 1% coffee, it'd also get a lot of hate.

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