To say some chocolates are distinctively middle class?

[lionobserving]

MIL asked us if we thought our ferrero rocher tower was "aspirational" and said she knows ferrero rochers to be the aspirational chocolates of the working class.

This baffled me. My family has always sort of transcended class - my mum was upper middle, my day was very working class. But he was a doctor and she a nurse. We were probably lower middle growing up if I had to put a tag on it, but our mixed extended family meant that we weren't aware of what was "posh" or MC / WC. We certainly wouldn't have known which chocs has the markings of which class.

Therefore MNers - lightheartedly - tell me which chocolates you view as typically middle class? We discussed it as a family and we couldn't come up with a single one!

Eats

I bought "walnut whip" in M&S a while ago - except there was no walnut, which was a disapointment.

For me, Hotel Chocolat or Montezumas is a treat, Paul Young really luxurious.

Smarties

Zurich based Teuscher are the finest chocolatiers in the world

@ShippingNews

Questions like this remind me of how happy I am to live in a country where class isn't a thing

Same. Mumsnetters really are obsessed with class though. I mean who honestly gives a stuff, just eat the chocs that you like!
This whole thread is tongue in cheek. We're not class obsessed (about chocolate - get over yourself!) and do a good line in self-deprecation. Life never goes well if you take yourself too seriously.

I like a Belgian brand called Mary..... once spent about 60 quid in the gorgeous Brussels store, mostly on what must be the most upmarket chocolate 'teacakes' (not Tunnocks!) ever. But they were absolutely gorgeous.
They were handmade and £4 each but the chocolate coating was thick, the marshmallow filling with light and creamy but not too sweet or sickly and the biscuit base was thick, crunchy and chocolatey too. Divine. Just the sort of thing Cook might knock up.

I visited Valrhona’s chocolate shop in France years ago. It was like the Rowan Atkinson scene from Love Actually.

@ShippingNews

Questions like this remind me of how happy I am to live in a country where class isn't a thing.

Oh my God, this a thousand times.

In the last week we've had chocolates, Santa, and the thread where some poor woman is being judged for pronouncing "garage" the wrong way.

It's not light hearted, any of it, it's judgey and awful.

Has Côte d'Or been mentioned yet?

Co op Fair Trade milk chocolate is my favourite swiftly followed by Poundland Milka!

Rococo
Baratti from Turin
Fortnum and Mason
Godiva
Valrhona
mmmmmmmmmm

My old boss was UC and ate hefty quantities of cadburys. Will have to call her and demand she relinquishes her country estate

'Artisan' chocolate - not necessarily a 'good' chocolate even if by individual maker as a lot are just bought in chocolate (often shit chocolate with palm oil) and then they make out of that - I've had loads of shit 'fancy' chocolate

Decent chocs are:
Audrey's (Brighton chocolate factory that makes for Fortnums) - I had a box of their hard caramels this year in milk - they were good (I didn't rate the rose/violet fondants)

Rococo - good chocolate

Prestat - good but quite a big producer now

Paul chocolatier - very good

(Mass produced chocolate I have a fondness for is Bendicks - bloody lovely mints)

2nd tier - Godiva/Leonidas/Neuhaus/ (decent mass produced chocolate)

Lower tier - hotel Chocolat/Thorntons/Tony's/anything from a cheap supermarket/Lindt (barely ok mass produced chocolate)

Bottom rung - Cadbury/nestle/chocs you can buy from Poundland

Most chocolate gives me a headache but not Galaxy . No idea if that's do do with class - I expect it's more to do with its ingredients!

Generally I don't discriminate against any chocolate. Roses and Quality are turds in landfill.

*throws a purple Lindt ball into the thread like a grenade

See, to me all the Charbonet et Walker, Rococo (spelling?) stuff isn't middle class, it's "I'm at Waitrose, I want to give someone chocs / an inoffensive present for whatever reason, ah this looks about right". If the same chocolates were in Tesco they wouldn't say MC at all imo.

So perhaps MC by association with Waitrose?

The upper middle jauntily diagonal class of person wouldn't dream of eating any chocolate unless it was in the form of (Bolivian cocoa powder fed) strictly Peruvian Andes Llama poo/pellets; which look like small maltesers, taste pointless yet sound interesting to boring rich people with no idea of how they got to this culinary lower middle point.

Not sre that any mass produced chocolate will every be truly posh.
Surely the poshest chocolates will be made by inependent chocolateirs who make their own chocolates.
I have one in my next town, every chocolate is hand made, the displays are stunning, but the prices are eye watering. Chocolates an be bought in singles, doubles, a box of six, 12 or 24.
Amazingly there is usually always a queue, , well heeled people travel for miles to buy them.

I don't know the answer myself. But mil did give us a hamper for Christmas and it had posh chocolates in. Thing is, I prefer Cadbury or galaxy 😅 more so because of the taste! I think she was trying to make it look more sophisticated.

If you can get FR in the 99p shop (you can), they are not middle class.

Ahhh, this explains why I gave my friend a tray of Thorntons and she called to complain they are not Hotel Chocolat.

I do think things change over time, tbh. Growing up in a working class household in the 90s, Ferrero Rocher, Thorntons and Guylians seemed incredibly posh. I still have that thought in the back of my head tbh, even though I will buy some of the brands listed as middle class on this thread regularly.

@snackodactyl

*throws a purple Lindt ball into the thread like a grenade

🤣