I knew the day was coming.

For a long time, I’ve lived with the realization that chocolate with ants existed. And that, one day, it would be available somewhere locally, and that I would make myself buy it.  It would make for a great story and, apparently, “you haven’t lived until you’ve gone out on a limb and eaten chocolate with bugs”. Think of the extra protein!

Bugs are not my thing.  Bugs in chocolate are definitely not my thing.  But for the sake of trying as wide a variety of chocolates as possible (and hopefully living to tell about it), and because such a chocolate was too interesting to pass up, I bought a bar.

I’ll be honest.  I was hoping for a chocolate with tiny, black ants that could be mistaken for bits of pepper if one didn’t think about it too hard.    What ended up staring me straight in the face and following me home was a little alarming:  larger-than-should-be-legal bachaco ants:

Mantuano 60% Lemon With Bachaco Ants

Google has informed me that this variety are leaf cutter ants straight from the rain forest.   I didn’t even need to be told that these ants are rather famous for their large, fat bottoms (as that part was quite obvious at a glance).

(My sister is very amused; she thinks it’s funny that I’ll spend good money on chocolate with “bugs”on it,  whereas she can just put her chocolate on the kitchen counter, wait a few minutes, and there will be ants on it…for free.)

So.  I needed brave volunteers, as trying such a chocolate by myself would be a rather lonely undertaking.  A first, volunteers were hard to come by.  A few people who shall remain nameless almost immediately accused me of ruining their appetite (or even “ruining” their entire day) by the mere mention of such a thing.  Such dramatic friends I have!

There’s also the fact that I may have scared a few people off when I mentioned the pincers:

But then, slowly but surely, I had takers.  The word got around about “Alaina’s ant chocolate”.   I had to buy a second bar to keep up with the demand!

By now you’re probably wishing I would just cut to the chase and let you know how amazing or how awful it was.

We haven’t tried it yet.

This is understandably a letdown after all the dramatics leading up to this point.  My apologies.  It turns out it is a little tricky to find a time that works for all of the fourteen or so people, who have other brave things to get done.

Rest assured, just as soon as we have our tasting session within the next week or two, I will report back.   Stay tuned for Chocolate Studded With Fat Bottomed Ants, Part 2!