Jun 24, 2011
Chocolate Versus Vanilla – The Great Debate
Several years ago, Bossy and her friend Craig from Puntabulous decided to hold the Olympics of sweets. Bossy was Team Chocolate and Craig was Team The Other Thing. The following is a transcript of their competition in its entirety.
Bossy: Clearly chocolate is the best flavor because chocolate is associated with romance. For instance, what do you give your loved one for Valentine’s Day? A box of chocolates. A box of vanillas? Not so much.
Craig: A wise man once said: “Love stinks! Yeah! Yeah! Love stinks! Yeah! Yeah!” As does romance and anything to do with romantic gestures. That’s why vanilla is is the far superior flavor! Besides, if someone really loved you they’d give you nice healthy vanilla yogurt, not fatty bad-for-you chocolate! And yogurt is just the beginning! Vanilla is the most versatile (hee hee) of all flavors!
Bossy: The most versatile of flavors? Right because there’s vanilla and… vanilla! You want to talk versatile than you have to talk chocolate. You got your milk chocolate and your dark chocolate. You got your semi-sweet chocolate, your unsweetened chocolate and your bittersweet chocolate. You’ve got your 25% cacao, your 35% cacao, and your 70% cacao. And, hello Mr. White Bread? A little thing Bossy likes to call White Chocolate.
Craig: Puh-lease! White chocolate is just chocolate’s ghetto way of trying to be vanilla. And all those different kinds of chocolate, all sound like uh…chocolate. Vanilla is totally the slutty prom queen of flavors while chocolate is the chubby tuba player. Vanilla extract has an alcohol content! You can get drunk off of vanilla! What’s cooler than that? Do I have to remind you of those dorky Ovaltine commercials? “More Ovaltine please!” Ugh, those commercials make me want to punch a baby penguin.
Bossy: You get drunk from vanilla? Wow you must be really churchy. In which case Bossy would like to introduce you to a little thing she calls Dopamine. When you eat chocolate, the bioactive agents contained within increase the brain’s level of serotonin, producing mild stimulation and the release of the calming, mood enhancing dopamine. That would be chocolate. Vanilla just makes your farts smell like sugar cookies.
Craig: Um, you say that as if farts smelling like sugar cookies are a bad thing? And what’s so bad about being churchy? I believe it was baby Jesus who once said: “You who favor vanilla over chocolate shall be welcome into the kingdom of heaven when my dad thrusts the Earth into a realm of terror for America’s acceptance of gays.” Or something like that. So when we get up to heaven there’s gonna be two lines, one for vanilla lovers and one for chocolate lovers. Or as St. Peter will refer to them as: “White Line” and “Colored Line”. Yay segregation! Vanilla power!
Bossy: But those who prefer chocolate don’t have to wait their whole whitey lives for St. Peter and that gate thingy, because eating chocolate is like heaven on earth. And lucky thing, because those who eat chocolate will live longer. There’s only one flavor that has the potential to lower blood pressure and cholesterol and reduce the risk of blood clots. And that flavor? Ding ding ding! Chocolate! Meanwhile Vanilla is good for… looking it up and… oh, here it is: Nothing.
Craig: I love vanilla. It makes me happy. You say vanilla is good for nothing. Following this logic, my happiness means nothing to you. I therefore declare this debate a personal attack on myself and upon my character. I can believe nothing you say. Perhaps you really love vanilla and are just saying you don’t to make me feel bad. Why would you do that? Why Bossy? Why? Now I’m sad. Quick! I need comforting. Someone get me some vanilla ice cream damn it! Better yet! How about a swig of ye olde vanilla extract! Ahhhh, sweet, sweet comfort.
Bossy: Oh, sorry, you were saying? Bossy couldn’t hear you above the sound of the weepy violin. Bossy is pained that the truth of vanilla is making you so sad. Do you know what always works for Bossy when she’s in need of comfort? First she takes a nice ceramic mug and puts it on the counter. And then she takes some milk and mixes it with her favorite chocolate syrup in a pan over a medium flame and voilà : Hot chocolate. You could always, um, take your, eh, and mix it with, uh, right! You could always eat your mug.
Craig: Oh, and what will you be putting in your hot chocolate? Is it…(dramatic pause)… marshmallows?! And do you know what a key ingredient in marshmallows is? Do I even need to tell you? Fine, I guess I do. (After all, people who prefer chocolate aren’t all that smart.) It’s vanilla! And as everyone knows, drinking hot chocolate is just an excuse to eat marshmallows and enjoy their vanilla goodness. Aw, I’m sorry my arguments are so awesome. Feel free to borrow my violin. You need it more than I do.
Bossy: You’ve heard it here first — on the planet Craig, marshmallows contain vanilla. Meanwhile for the rest of us, marshmallows are produced from a combination of sugar, egg whites, gelatin, corn syrup, dextrose, corn starch, tetrasodium pyrophosphate, and gum arabic. Which, yum, kind of reminds Bossy of vanilla. Also? Do you know how vanilla is harvested? The vanilla pods are plucked from their happy vine while they are all green and odorless and then they are sent off to slaughterhouses where their vegetative tissue is killed — this can be death by sun, by oven, by hot water, or by deep freezing. Bossy never knew Craig was so violent, but she thinks maybe there’s a mood enhancer that would help this predicament and, oh, it’s chocolate.
Craig: First off, the planet Craig is awesome. It is filled with hard bodies in loin cloths cooling me off with giant leaves and hand-feeding me grapes. Secondly, check out this recipe for marshmallows created by non other than Martha Fooking Stewart and shown on Oprah. Just try and defy Martha and Oprah! They will cut you! But wait, you must be right, Bossy, because you have a magazine and have built empires based upon just your name alone. Riiiiiiight. That’s what I thought. Vanilla rules, chocolate drools.
Okay, council, who do you think won? And which do you prefer? If you enjoyed this post, don’t forget to check out Puntabulous.
Were the long-chain alkaloids no migraine-producing, I would join you in chocoland. However, the pain is not worth the flavor so I have to go with:
V A N I L L A !~! !~! !~! !~!
ok, that would be “NOT” migraine-producing… early in the day for us West Coasters…
CHOCOLATE RULES!!!
Chocolate vs Vanilla totally needs to be the next Epic Rap Battle of History.
While vanilla is necessary for many things, say… chocolate chip cookies, I never seek out anything vanilla-flavored. I either have a sweet tooth, or a craving for CHOCOLATE.
Who is all, “I gotta get me some vanilla ice cream”? No one. It’s more like, “All I have is vanilla ice cream.”
Chocolate is more popular but vanilla is better tasting.
Chocolate, all the way, all the time. I don’t hate vanilla, but it just doesn’t do anything for me – it’s a non-flavour, the one you turn to when there’s nothing else left.
CHOCOLATE!
VANILLA!
If we are talking about ice cream, then vanilla! If we are talking about candy bars, then chocolate. With peanut butter.
CHOCOLATE!!!!! There’s not any contest. I hate it when I ask a wait person if they have chocolate ice cream, and they say, “No, but I can put chocolate syrup on the vanilla ice cream.” NOT THE SAME, PEOPLE!!! And totally unacceptable. Bossy wins!
One of my friends spent a college semester in Paris. Every day she’d travel past a soon-to-open Baskin Robbins.
The day the store opened she was the first customer; she tried to order her favorite flavor: vanilla.
So here’s the guy behind the counter, so proud that he owns a store that offers 31 FLAVORS OF ICE CREAM, and his first customer wants vanille, of all things. Sacre bleu!
He refused to sell it to her, insisting that she order something besides the most boring flavor on the planet. She had to go with butter pecan or something equally bland and as close to vanilla as she could get.
That being said — can’t we all just get along? I add a splash of vanilla to my hot chocolate and it comes out juuust riiiight.
On a different subject: I’m giving away a Soda Stream soda maker (it’s awesome — we have one and we love it). Stop by and take a look.
Bossy wins – Chocolate
but I wouldn’t want a world without vanilla either
Vanilla made its point slightly better than chocolate so vanilla wins. But as far as flavors go, coffee rules!
I loved this post and was just thinking about it yesterday. Weird that you put it up today. Fun to read it again!
aha haha!
chocolate *and* BOSSY win!
and funniest post ever!!!
Decisions . . . Decisions: I’ll think I will just have to keep on testing:
Vanilla: Best yogurt flavor, necessary in home made tapioca, my morning oatmeal, hot cocoa, choco chip cookies and brownies.
Chocolate: Bring it on: 70% cacao, semi-sweet, bittersweet, cashew bark, brownies and chocolate chip cookies.
Answer: They need each other and I need them both: it’s a tie.
Have a great weekend, p.j.
Clearly Bossy is the winner. I mean the “vanilla harvesting” alone makes you a winner. Besides, who really likes Vanilla? I like the smell and get candles and air fresheners that smell of vanilla. But hell if they made chocolate ones you can bet your butt I would have chocolate.
Chocolate to eat. Vanilla is good for candle scents. But let’s just mix them together and make some Baileys!
Vanilla!
Okay, I’ll concede to Craig that vanilla is the best yogurt flavor. And that it’s necessary for baking cookies. But for everything else? CHOCOLATE. The only reason to eat vanilla ice cream is to have something to pour the chocolate syrup on!
If it’s gonna be chocolate, it must be dark and not too sweet. Otherwise, it’s vanilla, hands down. The chocolate in standard-issue candy bars is disgusting!
Bossy’s the winner, although it’s not really a fair fight; technically speaking, chocolate is both a medium AND a flavor, whereas vanilla is a flavor that always needs another medium.
This was fantastic and on some serious Lincoln-Douglas shit.
Considering I read this while eating chili+lime dark chocolate, I have to with CHOCOLATE.
But, Craig makes some good arguments. A for effort!!
chocolate.
Ah the age old question……
I LOVE white cake with vanilla frosting topped with French vanilla ice cream! So–vanilla for me.
Always with the fart jokes, oy.
Yum, chocolate!
oohhhh I love a good arm wrestle, Bossy you’re such a wench..that poor bland vanilla man is no match for a rich luscious chocolate goddess. yeh you!
…[singing] “Ebony and Ivory, living together in perfect harmony, side by side on my piano keyboard, oh lord, why don’t weeee?”
…And the same goes for you two. *pointing at Bossy & Craig* Seriously, this is racial injustice pinning chocolate against vanilla. I bet if you asked chocolate and vanilla who is best they would say both. Yeah, yeah, so Craig’s farts smell like sugar cookies and Bossy is perpetually happy and is that a bad thing? No. So hug one another and lets just all get along like chocolate and vanilla, m’kay? Thank you. *sigh* ;o)
…And btw, this post was [singing the word] a-w-e-s-o-m-e!
…Blessin’s…
)
Nothin’ but chocolate in this here house!
love chocolate itself but hate it as a flavor.
I remember when I went to my first swingers party and I was asked how I liked it: with whips & chains, a butt plug or…..vanilla style. Says it all really!
I loved the photos so much. Just one was missing though: the one showing Martha and Oprah on your doorstep wielding flick knives.
About the flavors? I am all about diversity. I love them both. If I was stuck with just one of the two for the rest of my life – never to hear from the other (oh, sad day), I’d have to keep vanilla.
About the arguments – bossy, sorry, you got rocked.
Bossy drinks “hot chocolate” when she needs comforting? Is that Pennsylvanian for red wine?
A really good vanilla wins over every other flavor. But a bad chocolate is better than a bad vanilla.
well, vanilla. can’t put chocolate in a root beer float.
I personally like vanilla in general. However, I will have to say that chocolate is more interesting and complex so it easier to make arguments SOOOO I think Craig won b/c he was excessively creative in his arguments!
I’m voting for vanilla.
Cinnamon Chocolate w/ Mexican vanilla!
Arriba!
Good post, but truly accentuated by the photos!!! Like Chocolate and Vanilla equally, but if on an island with only one, it would most likely be vanilla, so I don’t get super huge and sink the island!!!
I will refrain from commenting on the great Chocolate V. Vanilla debate–too controversial a topic–but I will say this: if you love vanilla, and if you love vanilla beans, and if you love value, and if you want to get a POUND of vanilla beans, or if you are interested in the BEST saffron you will ever taste… this is an AWESOME source: http://www.saffron.com/ Seriously. Do your vanilla-lovin’ heart a favor and get some Tahitian beans–they’re INCREDIBLE, way better than the Mexican or Planifolia! Full Disclosure: I don’t profit in any way by sharing this link; it’s just something I love… and I bet all of you will, too… EXCEPT YOU VANILLA-HATERS.
Chocolate wins over any food, any time, any where, AMEN.
But that was the best debate I’ve ever seen. Love that Craig and his vanilla whitey self. Ya’ll should run for president on a joint ticket, chocolate+vanilla, peace on earth.
The heck with Oprah and Martha…I’m with Bossy: CHOCOLATE RULES! Vanilla is just a flavor enhancer used in chocolate confections. Sorry Craig, I’m sure you’re very nice and all (in a vanilla kinda way), but I wanna live on Planet Bossy with the chocolate.
Is this a trick question? Chocolate obviously. My son prefers vanilla. We’re hoping he gets the help he needs and deserves.
I was buying the chocolate argument until the part about vanilla being ‘harvested’ and so brutalized. Isn’t the same argument to be made of cocoa beans?
As for me, I favor, nay ‘require’, chocolate at a certain time of the month, but otherwise, I’m going straight for cheese-flavored.
I guess my problem is I got distracted with too many words and then my brain auto-played Eddie Murphy in a wig dressed up the illegitimate child of Elvis’s mom after she had an affair with Prince (or whatever his symbol is) and he was singing “Greatest Love of All”
and I started shedding crocodile tears, but only comming out of one eye.
and that is when my heart was softened by Jesus The Christ (after the tears came)
and I realized, why do you have to choose? Can’t bossy eat chocolate and craig having his vanilla in the same room? hell on the same table even. Why can’t bossy have chocolate then turn around and take vanilla? or better yet have both, in a swirl, from the same spoon? This is America! you should be able to mix yoagurt with iced cream and not care if it spills because the dog will lick it up.
Why can’t we just love another, why can’t we put chocolate, vanilla AND stawberry in the same bowl? dishing it out with wooden soup spoons and wearing blindfolds?
Chocolate is the perfect flavor in the whole world, but I enjoyed your debate fully and completely.
It’s no contest – chocolate. Good tasting, good for you. AND it actually goes well with both beer and red wine.
Let’s put it this way: go into a convenience store near you. Go to the candy aisle. Count the number of different chocolate candies. Now count the vanilla ones. Which number is greater? Nuff said.
Guacamole.
Chocolate. With coffee. And vanilla flavored creamer. Followed by a Bella Vanilla cigar. And then more chocolate.
Dear Frau Doktor Bossy, Does zat mek me bizexual. And why am I typing in an Austrian accent?
The violin pic was both unexpected and hilarious. Thanks for the funniest post of the day. In other news…definitely chocolate.
“Can’t we all … just … get along?” – Rodney King
#5 Jodi, brilliant analysis. I favor chocolate, but I cannot bake without vanilla—even in chocolate cake.
Definitely Foolery’s guacamole with a side of cheesy, salty and maybe occasionally something vanilla. Never chocolate.