A review of a one-item picnic in isolation.
There’s a lot of talk about wartime spirit at the moment. Not trench foot during World War One or decades of manipulation and threats of nuclear war during the Cold War, but some other kind of wartime spirit. That must be the rose-tinted glasses spirit.
Wars produce a lot of suffering and the coronavirus will likely do the same: in years to come how many people will be affected by the secondary conditions of lockdown-imposed torture?
But, I am not quite ignorant enough to misinterpret what is meant by “wartime spirit”. People want to showcase a commitment to community cohesion, generate a make do and mend attitude and emphasise that Covid-19 and the restrictions it has created will one day be widely harmless.
Obviously, picnics spent a long time during lockdown
being banned because strawberry tarts were a well-known treat of the dastardly
virus. However, because the UK is now doomed to face another devastating
economic crash, politics has predictably trumped (pun intended) healthcare and
picnics can take place as often as desired. 24/7 picnics. Picnic raves. The
festival of picnics.
Picnics are a favourite of the wartime spirit variety because they are traditionally shored up with honest, British foodstuffs like pork pies, jam sandwiches, scones and excess amounts of alcohol. The humble custard tart is a shining example of this type of heroic food and has even been immortalised in the form of Hotel Chocolat chocolates.
Available in a packet of six chocolates for £3.95 (things are a bit wobbly at the moment, but normally they can be mix-and-matched with two other six-packs – not including my non-existent one – for a tenner), Hotel Chocolat has upped the historically sloppy pastry to become a luxury chocolate.
The outside of the treats were smothered with a smooth white chocolate shell that housed the inner softness of creamy custard and nutmeg. The website describes the tarts as being related to Portuguese nata tarts, but, because I have literally no cultural expertise of anything, I have no idea what they are. Let’s just assume that they’re something fancy and great and move on.
Both the white chocolate and the custard were very prevalent in the taste of the chocolates, not seeming to be too sweet despite the obvious risks of over indulgence. They are surprisingly creamy for an idea based on a pastry and would perhaps have benefitted from the introduction of some wafer or biscuit to create subtlety with the creaminess.
Hotel Chocolat’s Custard Tarts have the overriding benefit of being original because a similar product of such quality would not be easy to find. However, the flip side is that they’re a novelty – they’d make an ideal small gift for yourself, but you certainly wouldn’t risk buying them for someone unless you were absolutely sure they’d enjoy them.
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