British Easter eggs: it’s the price that counts

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It’s almost Easter, so let’s drop in on those good folks who find themselves with an excess of money at this and every other time of year. Yes friends, with inequality on the increase and income being redistributed upward, it can be hard to figure out what to do with all that annoying cash (and its virtual equivalent), so when a few of the holidays come around I like to make a few useful suggestions. Because I do so want to be helpful.

What do I do with my cash? As a rule, I drop it on the floor of the village store while I’m wrestling change out of my pocket. I tell you, I can’t get rid of the stuff fast enough.

Anyway, welcome to the world of luxury Easter eggs. Let’s see how much money we can spend. And before someone else mentions it, let me be clear that what follows in no way represents the way 99.99% of British people live, or even what interests them; 99% of British Easter eggs sell for supermarket-type prices, at a rough guess £10 at the top end, three for £10 in the middle, and small eggs and chocolate rabbits for £1. I mention that because I want to be clear that I won’t be talking about the world most of us live in here.

Irrelevant and ever so slightly odd photo: This is Fast Eddie in motion. He doesn’t eat chocolate.

Ready?

For a mere £85, you can get a single-origin milk chocolate egg, boringly decorated with cherry blossoms, or the same thing in dark chocolate, only the dark chocolate’s from Madagascar, which may mean it’s more singular than single origin or may mean it’s less singular. We’re not told the origin of the milk chocolate, only that it’s singular. Maybe wherever it came from doesn’t sound as exotic as Madagascar. Maybe it’s from New Jersey.

Do they grow cacao in New Jersey? Not last I heard but it calls itself the garden state, so we can’t rule it out.

Which is better, single origin or Madagascan? Who cares. They cost the same.

The eggs weigh in at 800 grams of chocolate, which (in case your brain is wired non-metrically) is way the hell more than a pound of the stuff.

On the other hand, for £5 less (that’s £80, and aren’t you just proud of me that I figured that out?), you can get an ostrich Easter egg that’s half milk and half dark, filled with smaller chocolates and accompanied by a tray of chocolates that didn’t fit inside because those damned ostriches never did learn to plan ahead. They don’t really stick their heads in the sand to hide from danger, but you still can’t count on them to plan.

Is there a difference between planning and planning ahead? What else could you plan for if not something that’s ahead?

The egg is more than a kilo of chocolate, which translates to more than 2.2 pounds in non-metricality. How much more? They’re not saying. And you get zero decoration on the egg.

A bit further down the scale, for £57.50 you can get a milk chocolate egg “stippled” with dark chocolate and decorated with multicolored flowers. It’s not as expensive as the one with the cherry blossoms, but it is more colorful and more care went into arranging the verbiage. It’s not just stippled, it’s sumptuous. It “started life as the finest Swiss Grand Cru milk chocolate,” which makes me think that as a vegetarian I probably probably shouldn’t eat it. I don’t want to bite into something whose life was cut short because I wanted a snack.

Whether or not it was once alive, it now weights 600 grams.

Since I brought up the verbiage, I might as well say that I wouldn’t pay extra for it, no matter how carefully it’s arranged. You can’t eat the stuff.

And by way of full disclosure, I should say that I don’t want an Easter egg myself—especially an expensive one. I used to work in a candy factory and it cured me. I lost interest in almost all candy, although I do sometimes want good, plain dark chocolate—the kind most people think it meant for cooking.

But enough of that. As I was researching this post (I googled “easter eggs, luxury”—and yes, I included the comma; I can’t help myself), predictive text offered me “easter eggs the devil’s testicles.” And although—sorry, gents—testicles don’t interest me and I feel roughly the same way about the devil, the combination was too much to pass up. I’m here to tell you about parts of the world you might not stumble into yourself, right? So I clicked a few links and found that someone’s written a book that asks the burning question, “Are your children playing with Lucifer’s testicles?”

You thought they’d gone kind of quiet in the back bedroom, didn’t you?

[A late addition: Mikedw and Ubi Dubium (a) read the site more carefully than I did and (b) are more knowledgeable than I am, and both pointed out that it’s a satirical site. You can see their comments below. So I tripped on my own feet there. That’s particularly embarrassing since a blogger or two believed some of the more bizarre things I’ve said, including that Druids worshiped the Great Brussels Sprout, linked to them, and commented on them. But there’s no cure for embarrassement like admitting to it, so here you go. Read the rest of this with that in mind–I haven’t changed it.]

Now, I’m not so dedicated to this blog that I’m going to read the book for you, and no way in hell would I encourage the author by parting with money for it—I’d rather set the money on fire, thanks. So I’m limited to what the website told me, but it sound like the author recommends telling your children that their little heathen friends celebrate Easter the way they do because “in the old days, deluded pagans would gather round and hump like bunnies on Easter Sunday because they thought it would make their tomatoes grow faster.”

By way of extreme generosity, let’s assume (although it doesn’t say this) that you’re supposed to tell them about humping like bunnies in the most tolerant and age-appropriate way. You might also want to tell your kids why the pagans celebrated Easter on a Sunday, being as how they were pagans and all.

A quotation from the book says, “Pagan kids didn’t have anything to do on Easter Sunday because their mommies and daddies were stuck in a false temple all day, naked and writhing around with their neighbors in Satanic orgies of the flesh. You see, parents had to come up with a way to occupy their children while they were away from home, praying and fornicating under the altar of Satan. And since they didn’t have babysitters back then, they gave their kids eggs to play with and sometimes paint.”

And if that doesn’t teach me not to click random links on the internet, nothing will. It should also teach us all not to obsess about other people’s sex lives. It never leads anywhere good.

In spite of my better instincts, I’ve got to give you a link. How else will you know this isn’t the product of my diseased mind instead of someone else’s?

I need to get that out of our minds, don’t I? So let’s talk about chocolate again. When I’ve posted about overpriced Easter eggs in the past, I’ve waited until a newspaper or two runs an article about the most outrageous ones, then I ride on their research. But this year I thought I’d run the post a bit early, so we’ll have to make do with what I can find online.

Why don’t I call a few fancy store and do my research the way genuine journalists do? Because that works better when you write for some real publication instead of having to say, “Hi, I’m a blogger no one ever heard of. What’s the most ridiculous thing you’re selling this season?” So the internet it was.

Harrod’s is a reliable source of overpriced goodies, so I checked their website and found that they’re “partnered” with “artist Camille Walala,” who turned out a limited edition of twelve eggs. They say the “eggs are highly-prized; a fitting marriage of an exciting London designer with our [ahem; due modesty here] world-famous store.”

In the department of expensive verbiage, they could have saved some money by deleting the first hyphen, since it’s wrong anyway. And while I’m at it, the semi-colon began life as a comma and should probably return to that happy state of being before it gets mistaken for something edible, although it’s still going to be a clunky sentence for reasons I’m not going to get into.

The website doesn’t mention how much the eggs cost. I think it’s one of those “if you have to ask you can’t afford it” things, but if you insist on knowing how much money it’s humanly possible to spend on chocolate, you can look elsewhere on the site and order an assortment of truffles for £350, even though the assortment’s not specific to Easter. There’s no mention of how much it weighs, but the verbiage is weighty if not creative. It includes perfect, special, abundance, luxurious, mouth-watering, bespoke, and exquisite. Which—I’m sorry to be critical—strikes me as a bit ho-hum for that sort of money.

It also says the selection will leave you wanting more. At £350 a box, that might not be a good thing, but I suppose it depends on how much cash you’ve dropped on the floor of the village shop. If they ever move the freezer, they should have enough to buy a couple of boxes. Given what I contributed, I’m owed a taste.

 

99 thoughts on “British Easter eggs: it’s the price that counts”

  1. I can assure you that I do not spend anything like that on Easter eggs. I am self-employed on a low income and have four children and a mortgage. I am looking for the three for £10 Easter eggs! :)

    Liked by 3 people

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    • Sorry–I should’ve been clear that the ones I reviewed are anything but typical. In fact, I think I’ll go back and add that in. I got so caught up in the absurdity of it all that I forgot to give people a reality check. Thanks for reminding me.

      Liked by 3 people

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      • No, you did write that it is not typical. You put that 99.9% of Brits cannot afford to behave in that way. I am just saying that I am not one of the 0.1% that do that. It is a good article that makes the point that there are products out there that are absurdly extravagant and beyond the means of the majority of those in the UK. I have written a lot of similarly themed articles for somebody else recently. I am just, unfortunately, not in that situation :)

        Liked by 2 people

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  3. It seems like those very expensive eggs you described suppose to have melted gold mixed with chocolate haha 😂 😂 Maybe then would be worth their price!

    Liked by 3 people

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  4. Do you get an egg shaped as Lucifer’s Testicles with the book? (Sorry, that should obviously be two eggs.. )
    I’ve opened some bad images and follow on jokes with that so I’m going to stop now. I can see how easy this temptation stuff can lead you astray.

    Liked by 4 people

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    • If it’s a joke, good. But honestly, in the world we live in, I wouldn’t be too sure.

      Having said that, I’ve had people take some of the stranger things I’ve said seriously–most recently that the Druids worshiped the Great Brussels Sprout. It gets pretty weird.

      Liked by 1 person

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      • I know America has more than it’s fair share of religious weirdos but this whole page is brilliant, elaborate satire or, as it clearly states on the bottom line, a parody. The “reviews” are hysterical. Somebody went to a lot of trouble. As for the egg prices, look at it as a redistribution of wealth straight from the Robin Hood retailers manual. Shops have bills and staff to pay. Asking 350 quid for a box of chocolates from some idiot with more bullion than brains is a blow for democracy. The money might not trickle down like we were promised but at least it’s slithering sideways.

        Liked by 2 people

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        • Okay, so I’ve tripped on my own feet. I didn’t read the reviews, and the far fringes of the religious right are so nutty it’s hard to tell where satire begins. Or ends. Ironic, since one or two bloggers have picked up some of my nuttier comments and taken them seriously.

          Sigh.

          I like your theory of money slithering sideways. I’d prefer a more straightforward distribution, but what the hell, no one asked.

          Liked by 1 person

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  10. What the heck. And we wonder why the people are getting restless. I must admit that I’m wild about candy, but I am also a penny pincher. I go to the stores the Monday after Easter and get my chocolate stash for half price. ;)

    Liked by 4 people

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  15. Good mercy. I’d nearly forgotten how excited my husband gets about chocolate day. All this would be wasted on him, even if it wasn’t waste overall, because I’ve seen him chew his chocolate.
    I will take him to the store, and he will collect all the things, and extra of the things, under the guise of the children and then he will stuff himself with chocolate and go for a run. He will do this for a few weeks, until he runs out of chocolate, and then he’ll just go to the gym.
    I, on the other hand, will cook savory dishes and read. I will partake of some chocolate, but more the ham gravy.
    THAT is what pagan parents do on Easter. There may be writhing, but it will not include our neighbors or Satan.

    Liked by 3 people

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  16. Were any ears bitten off during all the writhing? I mean, it seems like it could get quite confusing. The eggs around here, besides the normal variety in the fridge, are Reese’s Peanut butter Eggs. If you tell me they don’t have those in England (still trying to get over the lack of Cheetos) I’d have to strike it from the list.

    Liked by 2 people

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  17. Pretty damned close to spewing tea through my nose here, too! Fortunately I’ve learned not to be taking a sip while reading your posts. Oh! and thanks for the link to Sally Forth. I had never come across that one it appears to be wickedly funny.
    …and it all started out so calmly.

    Liked by 3 people

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    • Yeah. Mikedw pointed out the same thing. It is hard to tell where satire begins and ends these days, but it’s ironic that I tripped over my own feet on this one, since one or two bloggers have taken some of the nuttier things I’ve said seriously.

      Liked by 2 people

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  23. Oh, Ellen, you’ve done it again! Pastor Deacon Fred is such a find! And I didn’t ever think how milk chocolate could be off the list for vegans (though I’m not sure about vegetarians??) but I’m also not sure American milk chocolate actually includes milk or any other actual organic substance…I’m pretty much off candy though I do enjoy the really dark chocolates at Aldi for cheap. And even though I don’t have much money I do go throwing it on the floor lots of places because isn’t that our duty to support the economy??

    Liked by 3 people

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  24. I think I’ll just boil and paint some real eggs. Besides, the whole thing about chocolate being good for your health has turned out to be based on biased research, statistics, wording and interpretation.

    Liked by 2 people

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