Source: Wikimedia Commons

I was surprised to learn that my home country – the United Kingdom – consumes more chocolate per person per year than Belgium. Moreover, Switzerland beats both countries by a handsome margin.

Nevertheless, Belgian chocolate could well be the finest in the world. Certainly, people here take it very seriously indeed.

In Brussels, where chocolate is the flag symbol of a sophisticated epicurean culture that frankly embarasses the provincial country folk, it’s a religion. And I’ve listened to several lengthy sermons about certain boutiques, hastily delivered from a palatal pulpit in the familiar rattle-tattle of Bruxellois French.

“[M]y very raison d’être is to offer you a dream,” says megastar chocolatier Pierre Marcolini on his website. “My need to challenge conventions, question what I do and break new ground,” he continues, “led to the creation of these chocolate squares that weigh barely six grams…”

Pierre Marcolini is a highly visible individual in what has traditionally been a business of long-established family names, each of which are cited reverently in a near-heraldic hierarchy of chocolastic excellence.

Like evening rain on the cobbles, Marcolini’s creations reflect an image in miniature of this city: a captive market of outwardly conservative, inwardly libertine lawyers, politicians and commissioners.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

For we foreigners, mere inquisitive guests at the banquet table of complex confection, this art can be difficult to appreciate, let alone afford.

That’s why I have to forgive J when, from the city of chocolate, she sometimes returns home with a box of Ferrero Rocher.

Ferrero Rocher have always been, to quote a pleasantly candid Wikipedia article, “promoted to a down-market audience as an aspirational brand”.

But for less than the cost of a third class fare with air-conditioning from Pune to Jaipur (1,302km for R1,087/€15.60, fact fans), a big box of Ferrero Rochers goes very well with that other expat essential, Taylor’s Yorkshire Tea (decaffeinated, of course).

Ah, now you’re talking: simple pleasures for simple people.