SOUTHEAST MISSOURIAN LAUNCHES CHOCOLATE-LOVERS RECIPE CONTEST

Chocolate.

Perhaps no other single food can quite inspire such a wide range of emotions: from pure satisfaction to sinking guilt.

Even in this day of fitness and fat-free menus, chocolate sales enjoy an all-time high. Rich, dark and creamy -- chocolate is hard to resist, especially in the guise of devilish desserts.

The Southeast Missourian kicks off its first-ever Devilish Desserts Contest today. Desserts can be in the form of cakes, cookies, candy or other sumptuous treats. The only requirement is that chocolate must be prominent in the list of ingredients.

To enter, send your chocolate recipe to: Devilish Desserts, Southeast Missourian, Box 699, Cape Girardeau, Mo., 63702-0699. The deadline is Jan. 27.

This recipe competition follows the popular Meat Loaf Lovers contest sponsored by the newspaper last May.

Two specialists with the University of Missouri Extension Service will aid the staff in narrowing down the recipes to the top five. All those who submit a recipe will receive a certificate of appreciation, and all recipes will be published on the Feb. 12 Home Page of the Southeast Missourian -- just in time for Valentine's Day.

The five semi-finalists will be asked to bake up their desserts and bring them to the Southeast Missourian on Saturday, Feb. 8 for a taste test by a community panel of chocolate and cooking experts.

The winner will receive a year's subscription to the Southeast Missourian -- a $137.50 value. The four runners-up will win their choice of a Southeast Missourian comic-strip umbrella or the "Images of the Past in the City of Roses" hard-bound pictorial history book.

All finalists will be photographed and interviewed about their devilish desserts.

Why is chocolate so popular? "Because it tastes better than just about anything else," summed up Susan Smith, a spokesman for the Chocolate Manufacturers Association in McLean, Va. "It just melts in your mouth."

Chocolate and winter seem to go hand-in-hand. Smith said the "chocolate season" typically starts at Thanksgiving and continues through Valentine's Day.

But the season gets an early start from Halloween, considered the top candy-selling holiday of the year. The next most popular confectionery holidays, in descending order, are Christmas, Easter and Valentine's Day.

For more information, call Joni Adams or Peggy Scott at 335-6611.

DEVILISH DESERTS CONTEST

Mail chocolate recipes to:

Devilish Desserts

Box 699

Cape Girardeau, MO. 63702

Deadline is Jan. 27

Include address and phone number

SWEET FACTS

Per capita consumption of chocolate:

1983: 9.67 pounds per person

1995: 11.5 pounds per person

-- Chocolate is America's favorite flavor. In a Gallup poll, chocolate outscored any other flavor by a whopping 3 to 1 margin.

-- Chocolate was first discovered by the Aztecs of ancient Mexico. They believed chocolate was divinely inspired, a gift from the god Quetzalcoatl, who brought the seeds of the cocoa tree from the Garden of Life and gave them to man. Initially, chocolate was a drink.

-- The first European to discover chocolate is believed to be Christopher Columbus who introduced it to the Court of King Ferdinand after returning from the New World in 1502.

Source: Chocolate Manufacturers Association in McLean, Va.