People who know me know I love chocolate. In the US, I ate chocolate in one form or another every day.

In Mexico, chocolate is not as popular and thus not as available as it is in the US. When it is available, the quality and richness usually don’t compare with what’s available in the US. We had a chocolate birthday cake recently – the cake itself had so little cocoa in it that it was barely distinguishable in color and taste from the vanilla cake next to it. And the frosting, although it was brown, didn’t taste much like much besides sugar. Chocolate just isn’t what people crave here.

Most grocery shopping occurs in small specialty shops – the butcher for meat, tortilleria for tortillas, vegetable shop for fruits and vegetables, etc. These shops only sell the items their shop specializes in. There’s no large grocery store comparable to what you’d find in the US where you can purchase everything in one trip. Consequently, there’s no candy aisle or checkstand overflowing with 50 different candy bar options.

That’s not to say there are zero options. There are general stores and “convenience” type of stores, most of which will have a small selection, such as Hershey bars and M&M’s. You just have to be more intentional and search for it, because it’s not in your face everywhere. Note that a small candy bar costs the equivalent of about 75 cents, while a Mexican sweetbread costs about 25 cents; most locals would prefer a sweetbread.

When you do find American brands of chocolate, it’s packaged for the Mexican market. Not only for language, but the sizes are also different.

All of that to say that here in Mexico I have had to break my chocolate habit. I’m fine with that as I was planning to make the effort to eat more healthfully here. I usually give in once every couple of weeks and buy a small candy bar.

Here’s a photo of a Snickers bar. You may have seen this in the US, where on the back side of the wrapper they put a word besides “Snickers”. This one says “chiflada”, or “crazy”.

(The part at the top of the wrapper says, “You’re not yourself when you’re hungry.”)