Maryland Delights, Act I : Chocolate Cremes

After I posted about the American food items I sorely missed, C&Z reader Alicia, from Maryland, offered to do a little food swap with me. Me? Food? In the mail? I happily accepted. I received her package just last week, and will now, ladies and gentlemen, before your startled eyes, proceed to uncover its content, in three installments.

The first item was a package of chocolate cremes, made by Berger Cookies, a bakery founded in Baltimore in the 1830's. In passing, the website is worth a little trip, for the wonderfully kitsch photos, the brilliant tagline ("Bergers: the anytime cookie!") and the company's history.

I'd never had chocolate cremes before. Alicia described them as fudge cookies in the accompanying letter. Promising! They didn't seem to have suffered too much from their transatlantic trip : the chocolate had probably melted ever so slightly, but that just gave them the appetizing and touching look of the home-made pastry.

And they were delicious. A thick layer of dark chocolate, topping a cake-like cookie, very smooth, very sweet and very rich : built-in portion control, I challenge you to eat two in one sitting! They are quite different from anything we can find here - very American! - and I've enjoyed them thoroughly, washed down by a cup of coffee...

[To be continued...]