Sweet Heart

Sweetness is happiness as every child knows. A taste for savoury—runny Bries, dense Bordeaux—that comes later, after a few hard knocks. But sugar, white as a blank page, is the passe-partout to every cheerful room in Instant Comfort Castle. White sugar really ought to be re-named White Mischief, after that Happy Valley Set of fast-living British aristos who ran amok in Kenya. Ain’t life grand—until it ain’t. Processed sugar is now implicated in everything from obesity to diabetes to allergies. Why couldn’t Nature assign this nefarious role to rutabagas? When you’re low, will a mashed turnip come to your emotional rescue? I think not. What about a profiterole or ten, then? Yes please!

In France, Nutella sales have soared as the mood of its citizens has tanked. This Christmas, this sugary/nutty/chocolaty spread is even available in a supersize tub at La Grande Epicerie, that bastion of left-bank foodie chic. So even here, at a department store owned by luxury giant LVMH (Louis Vuitton, Dior, Guerlain, Sephora, Moet Hennesey and so on…), one can see which way the cookie crumbles. This outbreak of Nutella over-consumption has spawned a new profession: psychologists who specialize in Nutella addiction. In any event, in Paris, the clothing boutiques remain mostly empty while the teashops and patisseries—the Ladurie’s and Angelina’s—have queues. And, you don’t need to be investment guru like Jim Rogers to see that, as more people indulge in sweets, they’ll grow fatter, become depressed over their bulk, and need a sugar fix to cheer themselves up again! Rogers recommends sugar as a long-term commodity investment (because of growing worldwide demand for sweets), while the French, it seems, prefer it in the morning, spread on toast.

At the Sonia Rykiel/H&M fashion show in Paris, the venerable Grand Palais was transformed into a circus wonderland. Lenôtre supplied the ice cream, pink cotton candy, macaroons, profiteroles topped with silver icing, petit fours, chocolates, cakes, cookies, and tartlettes, oh, and Perrier Jouet!…no wonder Rykiel’s models are always laughing and smiling. At the after-party, I held back until a saucy ‘cigarette girl’ flipped open her case revealing tiny perfect chocolate éclairs. I caved then and never looked back. Awakening the next morning with a smile—I felt a craving for a warm pain au chocolat, in lieu of my Puritan-inspired oatmeal.

Fortunately sweetness comes in many guises—sweet words (‘darling!’ ‘lovey!’), sweet sounds (Chopin, or a trickling stream), sweet aromas (vanilla, warm milk) but don’t even try to convince me that grinding one’s way through a stack of carrot sticks will satisfy a sweet tooth. “They’re naturally sweet!” you say. Nonsense. A hit of the real thing should elicit an instant ‘ahhh’, akin perhaps to the sweet bliss of morphine as it crosses the blood-brain barrier. Here in the Canadian hinterland, we are practically drowning in maple syrup. Los Angeles, you can keep your perfect 75 degree weather and your pool boys—we’ve got sweet sap and lots of it. Maple syrup is often recommended as a sugar substitute because it contains trace elements such as zinc and manganese and these have beneficial effects on heart function and on cholesterol levels. 

In Canada we even have a posh skincare line based on the stuff. Every cult product needs a good backstory. La Mer has Max Huber, a rocket scientist, who sought to create a balm for his injured skin after an experiment literally blew up in his face. 8-hour cream from Elizabeth Arden, (a Canadian, by the way), was originally developed to nourish the hooves of her beloved racing horses. B. Kamins skincare was developed by a chemist, Ben Kaminsky, after he was on a fishing trip in Quebec and noticed that some trees thrived in the harsh climate while others could not. He spent the next 30 years researching the active ingredients in the sap of specific maple trees until he developed what he calls the bio-maple compound. It contains the usual good stuff such as anti-oxidants, polyphenols, polysaccarides, minerals and AHAs. One of the first products he created—for his wife—was Menopause Skin Cream, designed to soothe and cool skin tissue affected by hormonal flux. Not the flashiest name for a beauty product—why not just call it ‘old woman cream’?  Still, it must do the trick because it was a hit right from the start and they haven’t bothered to re-brand it into something spritely. The line has now expanded to 56 products including something called Eyelash Fortifier to help give eyelashes a boost. Time may march on, but sugar, we’re gonna flirt ‘til we drop.