Chocolate in CyberSpace

The chocolate news just keeps coming. No kidding, there’s a chocolate-lover’s site on the Internet, Godiva OnLine. Basically it features drink and dessert recipes made with Godiva liqueur, articles from Chocolatier magazine and curious chocolate lore. The address is https://www.godiva.com.

Garlic Calling

Yes, there is a Garlic Hot Line--an 800 number with an on-line nutritionist to answer your garlic questions. It opened last year as an offshoot of the Medical and Nutrition Information Center at Cornell University Medical School in New York City.

“We’re not pushing products,” says director Barbara Levine. “We compile all the current studies on garlic and disseminate them. We help in cooking.”

This is not Cornell Medical School’s first such venture. “In 1991,” says Levine, “we started a calcium information center with an 800 number (321-2681). Then we were approached to accept a grant to research on cancer and aged garlic extract. A small part of that was a garlic information center.”

The study was sponsored by Wakunaga of America, maker of the garlic extract Kyolic. Most studies of the medical potential of garlic have used aged garlic extract, because it contains measured amounts of S-allyl cysteine, the chemical whose potential to fight cancer, lower cholesterol and blood pressure and enhance the immune system is being scrutinized. The fact that aged garlic extract has little smell is, ahem, scientifically irrelevant.

“We try to say where we stand in research,” says Levine. “We can say the research is promising, but we can’t prescribe, and we don’t talk about brands.

“There’s great interest in the subject. People who already like garlic want to know about how it’s good for them. We already had hundreds of people a day calling even before the 800 number.” That number is (800) 330-5922.

Vitamin-Rich, Sugar-Free Chocolate!

If your problem with chocolate isn’t fat but sugar, a chocolate bonbon called Nutra-Bon is sugar-free . . . and enriched with vitamins and minerals. It’s sweetened with Maltitol, which isn’t absorbed by the body, so Nutra-Bon is safe for diabetics. It actually tastes like chocolate truffle inside a chocolate coating (the vitamins and minerals are flavorless). Available at health food stores, or call (800) 234-5608.

Truffles Before Swine

The New York shop Aux Delices des Bois warns that low-priced black truffles often come from the Himalayas, not from France. Aux Delices itself carries the Himalayan variety, which has a smooth, chocolate brown surface (Perigord truffles are bumpier and dark brown to black), but a more astringent flavor than the black truffle. Until recently, the store claims, Nepali farmers fed Himalayan truffles to their pigs.

Fat Snake

Python is edible, but if you ever have to pot-roast one, be sure to boil it first. That’ll remove some of the terrible fattiness.