Every rogue state on the planet would love to get its hands on my grandmother’s recipe. I would not like to think what would happen if Saddam got the chocolate sauce. If I have anything to say about it, he’s not getting squat.
If that makes me seem arrogant, or like the chocolate-sauce-police of the globe, I’m sorry. But the fact is, I have the recipe and you don’t. Be reasonable. If you really think about it, none of us wants to live in a world where anybody with enough pluck can go ahead and make my grandmother’s chocolate sauce. That would be highly destabilizing, and additionally, would suck.
I’m not definitively saying there’s evaporated milk in it, but Iraq appears to be trying to get their hands on this unique ingredient. There is no other known use for canned, evaporated milk than my grandmother’s chocolate sauce. Can you name another use for it? No. Who else buys it except me? No one. Until now. Iraq’s apparent interest in evaporated milk is very troubling indeed.
A similar product, sweetened condensed milk, is innocuous. I’m not giving away any state secrets here when I say it has no application in the making of my grandmother’s chocolate sauce. Lots of delicious, though conventional, recipes call for it. A tablespoon mixed into a hot cup of tea is delightful, and no cause for alarm whatsoever.
It would be ridiculous to deny that sugar, cocoa, and butter are in my grandmother’s chocolate sauce. They are. And they are easily obtained everywhere, though not necessarily in the correct proportions or of the required quality. This is one of the tradeoffs of a free society. I would not like to eat dry toast just to make sure no one else got my grandmother’s chocolate sauce. For better or worse, our current laws allow just about anyone to buy these ingredients over the counter, as long as they look like credible shoppers.
Thanks to unscrupulous relationships in the past with Russia and the CIA, Saddam already has access to cheesecake and sherbet. We’d have to be pretty naive to believe that he doesn’t have a cupboard full of sauces, glazes, chutneys, and nut-toppings as well. Confetti sprinkles, for example, are distributed evenly throughout the globe, as they should be.
But this chocolate sauce stays in the family. It is not Iraq’s fault that it didn’t develop this chocolate sauce, and I don’t blame them for wanting it. It is a terrible responsibility, and one that I do not take lightly at all. With a heavy heart, I reflect on the awesome fact that my grandmother’s chocolate sauce exists at all. It would be so much easier if we could turn back the clock, and pretend she never created it.
Don’t get any ideas about raiding my recipe box. I have committed it to memory, and destroyed the original. Also, I must urge you not to try to duplicate my grandmother’s chocolate sauce. It has evolved into a very exacting science which cannot be easily transferred. For example, if the sauce has just a dash of vanilla extract in it—and I’m not saying it does—well, what the hell kind of measurement is a “dash” anyway? Let’s just say that disaster has so far been averted. But when you get a hundred million Iraqis mucking around with double boilers (which, by the way, are NOT used in making the sauce), it would only be a matter of time. Is it worth the risk?
People of Iraq: Do not fear me or hate me because of my grandmother’s chocolate sauce. Be grateful that it’s in such good hands. If it’s any consolation to you, Turkey has been trying to duplicate my wife’s cranberry sauce for decades, and Chile—let’s not even go there.
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