What Happens When You Turn A Violent Dystopia Into A Tasty Treat?

A massive, highly mediated film event nowadays means the entire world is subjected to an absolute maelstrom of press and exposure. At points, we find ourselves wondering if a world ever existed pre-whatever big movie/album/global event is currently being shilled because it has become so ubiquitous. With intense publicity comes crazy tie-ins, oftentimes feeling, erm, a bit random or weirdly off-base.

The irony of The Hunger Games is that the tale is distinctly anti-capitalist and focuses on the inequity between the haves and have-nots. Of course, this doesn't make for super-great product tie-ins, but, hey, companies have gotta try, don't they? When we caught a sniff of the luxuriously boxed and assembled The Hunger Games: Catching Fire chocolates, we thought, why not?

Think about it: Chocolate is the great equalizer. Sure, die-hard fans can shell out big bucks for artisanal, handcrafted stuff, but a regular Hershey's bar costs a few coins. In this case, Wild Ophelia — a diffusion line from high-end choco-brand Vosges — created a chocolate bar library, using each of the 12 districts as taste inspirations. The bars are $4.99 each or $65 for the entire set.

We decided to do a blind test of each of these chocolate bars with some of our cocoa-savvy editors to see if the districts did indeed translate into taste. After informing them of all 12 districts, plus their specializations (Luxury, Masonry, Technology, Fishing, Power, Transportation, Lumber, Textiles, Grain, Livestock, Agriculture, and Mining), we asked each R29er to identify each flavor. Could a chocolate bar really communicate Masonry? What would Fishing taste like? Is it weird to eat fancy chocolate inspired by a movie with people starving? We investigate.