Chocolate sausages?

<Picture of chocolate sausages in Annecy, France>
Ah, French chocolate shops. They know their stuff. The ones in Annecy create all sorts of amazing chocolate sculptures for their window displays and sell the most delicate shapes with all sorts of interesting flavours. Even their slabs of chocolate come at a hefty price, but the taste seems worth it.

Walking past a chocolatier in Annecy last weekend, I was surprised to see these chocolate sausages in the window. The sign on them translates to: “Home-made cold cuts! Local sausage as chocolate.” They do look rather sausage-like, but that’s where my appreciation ends. Perhaps that’s a bit harsh, but who wants to eat a chocolate in the shape and colour of a sausage? Also, the local diot sausage seems to be rather hit and miss. Good ones exist, but you might stumble across a dodgy one filled with fat as well.

Still, there’s a certain novelty in a chocolate sausage, right? Possibly, but the thing I love about buying chocolate from a specialist shop is that the chocolates are usually bite-sized treats. I can savour the flavour without overdoing it. These sausages are not small. How do you eat one? Normal sausages get eaten with a knife and fork or they’re hiding inside bread while you poke it in your mouth. I’m not sure I want to ram a giant chocolate sausage in my open gob for the world to see. Men everywhere would surely cringe as I take that first bite. And as much as I love chocolate, it’s hardly a bite-sized chunk being sold here, and it doesn’t look all that easy to break into sections.

To top it all off, the lady in the shop sprung me taking this photo and glared at me like I was performing some criminal act. I smiled weakly and ran before I had time to contemplate buying one “for the novelty”. Should I go back and buy one? If at least ten people think I should, I’ll take the challenge.

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About

I'm a technical author, journalist and writer from Australia who has been living in Europe since 2000 and exploring the world from there. My passions are writing, snow sports and travel.

13 Comments on “Chocolate sausages?

  1. Oh my. You know, I think my love for sausages exceeds my love for chocolate so I would actually be disappointed to take a bite of that and taste chocolate!! I definitely don’t think you should buy from such a rude shopkeeper! I’ve taken to “shooting form the hip” so stall owners and shopkeepers don’t do the same to me.

  2. ha ha! I walk past this shop every day and I did a big double take when they first put these out! I cant stand real diot and the chocolate ones dont look much better 🙂

  3. I think you should buy one for the sake of academic research. I get glares from people when I take photos for my blog sometimes, but usually from my daughter who has a low embarrassment threshold. Total strangers I can cope with!

  4. Mitch, it’s in the old town, along the road at the back of Monoprix (where you can drive through the tiny archway. It’s the chocolatier on the right after the arch.

    So far, I’ve got 5 BUYs here and one on Twitter. Four more and I’ll head back down despite the grumpy shopkeeper!

  5. I’ve seen some strange things in France (we live in Burgundy), but this one leaves me speechless. What were they thinking? Do you think they’re really chocolate or real sausages with chocolate? Either option is scary. Of course now we must have a tasting. You do it please, I’m busy that day.

  6. Lynn, I wondered the same thing. Apparently, ‘diot en chocolat’ means ‘sausage of chocolate’ whilst ‘diot au chocolat’ means ‘sausage with chocolate’. Phew! Okay, that’s seven votes now…

  7. I’m a bit late to weigh in, but I don’t think you should do it – I love a good sausage, but they look wrong!

  8. I remember taking a photo with my BlackBerry of a window display in Metz, and the owner came running out accusing me of wanting to steal her marketing ideas. What had caused me to take a photo was that the display was a complete jumble. It looked like she had dumped boxes of stuff into the shop window that didn’t fit on the shelves. Perhaps if I were a retailer I would have recognized her as being a marketing genius.

  9. Haha! Dovid, that’s a brilliant story! I mean, how do you respond to someone doing that when their window display is so bad?