Wacky World of Choc Wednesdays: Chocolate Furniture, Busts, and Product Placement
There’s wacky world of choc news to spare this week, with three stories just itching to be told.
First, Leandro Erlich’s sofa made out of cake (and frosted with chocolate – ooh la la!) made headlines here, here, here, and there.
The cake sofa, a replica of Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona couch, was exhibited at New York’s Haunch of Venison gallery. The chocolate crafting is extraordinary – the pleats, buttons, and upholstery look just like leather.
Of course all good cake sofas must eventually be eaten.
Second, Australian chocolatier Darrell Lea recently teamed up with ice sculptor Kenji Ogawa to produce three chocolate busts of famous Aussie dads. The busts are equal parts fun and weird.
An article describes the busts as:
… a trio of one-of-a-kind, life-size chocolate replica busts in the likeness of celebrity fathers 7PM Project presenter and comedian Dave Hughes, TODAY Show host and genius MC Karl Stefanovic and professional masticator Matt Preston.
The artisan effort, however, is not merely a vanity project for Preston to indulge in some cultish, culinary ouroboros ritual in which he chows down on his own jowls with a pensive expression on his face: instead, money raised from the sale of the heads in an eBay auction will go toward the Save the Bilby Fund. Each sculpture took two days and 60kg of chocolate and a whole lotta self-restraint on Ogawa’s part:
“Lifelike faces are challenging to sculpt, particularly when it comes to accurately capturing the unique features of an individual. But, it is also highly rewarding and I loved the experience of working with chocolate to create these very unique pieces of art. I did however, have to stop myself from eating the shavings!”
(Bilbies are adorable, by the way, and its lovely that this group is working to save them. My, what big ears and pointy snouts they have!)
Here’s a behind the scenes video of the artist at work:
Third, soap opera blogs erupted with commentary on what was perceived as blatant, shameless product placement on a recent episode of ABC’s General Hospital. A scene featured two major characters discussing their love of Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup and clink-clinking glasses of chocolate milk in a special toast. As one commentator put it, “Not so surprisingly, the first commercial to run after that scene was for Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup.” To read a detailed description of the scene, see the full post.
If you’d like to watch and judge for yourself, here’s a video. The scene in question starts at 01:18 and ends at 02:43.
Given chocolate milk’s current embattled state in public schools, this is a product placement worth thinking about.
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Bittersweet Notes is an open source research project on chocolate, culture, and the politics of food. I invite you to join me as I explore the story of chocolate and the life stories of those involved with chocolate at its many stages of production and consumption.
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