When In Rome

My favorite travel souvenirs have changed over the years — thankfully! — from fridge magnets to confectionery.

- Wendy Long

When I say confectionery, I do not mean the kind that is ubiquitous in the basement food halls in Japan or the swanky malls in Hong Kong, but products that are unique to a city, and without global franchises. I do not want to fly all the way to Paris and buy chocolates for friends and family that they can easily find in Hong Kong or Singapore. What is the point? But with globalization, it is getting increasingly difficult to “buy local.” Part of the joy is in the hunt for something that only the locals would know about. The irony of this hunt is that these treats are not even for my own consumption; I buy them only to give them away as gifts. I liken it to eating vicariously through others (since I’m on a self-imposed lifetime ban from sweets, or eating anything yummy, really), just as others claim to live vicariously through my travel photos.

On a trip to Paris last autumn, a friend introduced me to Patrick Roger chocolates, which are only available in Paris. The sole criterion, when I asked for recommendations of local confectionery, was that it must be Parisian, with no shops outside France. (My friend is from Normandy, not Paris, but that’s still local in my books.)

I had to lift my self-imposed ban momentarily because the chocolates were worth every ounce of sugar. I brought a suitcase filled with chocolates back to Singapore — this was during Fashion Week. And when I gave a box of chocolates to a salesperson at a major French fashion house, the brand’s buyer, who was in Paris on a buying trip for the Spring/Summer 2019 collection, had to accept orders for the chocolates; everyone in the store wanted more.