Brazilian Brands: Diamante Negro

What is it about chocolate that inspires such adoration? I’m sure you’ve all seen those articles in which “scientists say” all kinds of things about chocolate (it releases endorphins, is good for your heart, etc). But on top of all that science stuff, I think many of us are more than a little sentimental about chocolate aren’t we? I for one could talk for hours about the various chocolate bars and confectionery of my youth (don’t get me started on the infamous case of the shrinking Curly Wurly).

You can gauge the amount of love there is for a product by the intensity of longing that exists among expats who can’t get hold of it anymore (personally I obsess over Marmite, HP Sauce and Cadbury’s Dairy Milk). I wonder how many Brazilians living abroad have saudade for  today’s Brazilian Brand.

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Diamante Negro

Name: Diamante Negro.

Product: Chocolate.

Description: This chocolate bar goes back a long way and (surprise surprise, this being Brazil!) it has a football connection. In 1938, the World Cup was being held in France. Germany had just invaded Austria (the Anschluss even extended to the football teams, leaving the tournament one team short!), but for French journalist Raymondo Thourmagem, the story of the tournament was a Brazilian player, Leônidas da Silva. Thourmagem was so impressed with Leônidas that he dubbed him the Diamante Negro (Black Diamond) and the name stuck.

Lacta, a Brazilian chocolate manufacturer, opportunistically decided to rename their chocolate bar after the great player and again, the name stuck. They came up with a rather nice slogan too: “Viver é bom, com Diamante Negro é melhor” (To live is good, with Black Diamond it’s better).

I’m pretty confident that the curvy shape makes the chocolate taste better. I don’t know why, but it does.

Verdict: Despite the name and the packaging, this is milk chocolate. The bar is divided into rather excellently shaped/contoured blocks and inside you find delicious little sweet crunchy bits. The crunchy bits inside are listed as “pedacinhos crocantes de castanhas de caju e mel” (crunchy pieces of honey and cashew nut) but Mrs Eat Rio and I thought they were actually just bits of caramel candy. Anyway, regardless of what they are, they definitely add little extra to the mix.

Mmm! Sweet, sweet crunchy bits…

As packaging goes, that is one very striking design isn’t it? I have to say that it rather reminds me of a car cleaning product (even the name sounds like something you’d use to polish your windscreen/windshield doesn’t it?). But pop one if those sculpted segments into your mouth and all thoughts of cars will be banished.

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So that is today’s rather delicious Brazilian Brand. As I am not a big chocolate eater, I still have 3/4 of the bar left hidden in the fridge. That should last me another week or two (unless Mrs Eat Rio finds it!).

That’s Leônidas da Silva in the centre. Not only does he have a chocolate bar named after him, but he is also credited with inventing the bicycle kick!