My grandmother was a candymaker. For every holiday, she poured hours of love into candy making. She made peanut brittle, caramel and hard candy. You know those creamy mints you get at weddings … she made those too. Her fudge was diverse and unmatched. Chocolate fudge is OK, penuche is amazing, but white fudge with maraschino cherries is the most pleasurable experience of my life. My wife learned to make this fudge and I begged her to stop. In the same way a heroin addict is found dead with the needle still in their arm, I was destined for death with my chubby cheeks stuffed with white fudge.

This list of sweets was not enough; my grandmother also made bonbons. Grandma’s bonbons were equal parts peanut butter and powdered sugar dipped in chocolate. I have flashbacks to the sugar high that would inevitably come from eating just one. To me, that is a bonbon … a peanut butter ball dipped in chocolate.

To the young and unencumbered, marriage broadens your cultural horizons. This happened in my marriage, as my wife’s family is more cultured than my own. Her aunt lives in the sophisticated part of Puget Sound. We visited once and she served what looked like bonbons. But instead of peanut butter, she made a cookies and cream bonbon.

“Wait,” I said, quizzically, “I thought a bonbon was a chocolate-covered peanut butter ball.”

“You silly hillbilly,” she replied, perhaps quietly to herself, “Any confection dipped in chocolate is a bonbon.”

“Anything?” I asked in disbelief.

She then reached into her refrigerator and pulled out a chocolate-covered lemon ball. In the same way that a near-sighted child first puts on glasses, my eyes were open to the possibilities of chocolate-covered foods.

For holidays, I created bonbons. I started with cookies and cream and peanut butter. We quickly added caramel and fudge brownie. Next we did cookie dough bonbons. What about the salmonella or listeria, you may wonder? Food-borne illness is seemingly worth the risk because every cookie dough bonbon is eaten.

We kept adding. S’mores bonbons? Delicious but messy. Mint is great but it turns the dipping pot minty even after you clean it. I tepidly tried a maraschino cherry ball, which triggers the same addiction centers from the 12-year-old me. Every Christmas, I buy a 10-pound bar of chocolate to dip a variety of flavors. I grace my family’s Christmas party with a half-dozen gallon-sized bags of candies … spreading holiday cheer and Type 2 diabetes.

This last year, my mother took it a step too far. “Have you ever considered dipping bacon in chocolate?”

My mother’s fascination in dipping non-kosher meats into chocolate seems bizarre, so that is where I draw my line. But it did make me think. How different is bacon dipped in chocolate from brisket dipped in barbecue sauce?

When my children were younger, we dined out one day. One of my degenerate children perused the kids menu and settled on an ice cream sundae for lunch. I used this as a lesson on nutritional choices. I showed them the nutritional information under each menu item and told them to find something lower in sugar, fat and calories. That would be a better choice.

“There’s a problem, Dad,” they replied. “The ice cream sundae has the lowest sugar, lowest fat and lowest calories of anything on the menu.”

So I did what any good parent would. We had ice cream for lunch. But that begged the question: Why does spaghetti, hamburger or chicken tenders have more sugar than the ice cream sundae?

Now, I can feel the sugarbeet farmers bristling right now. It seems that every health concern today is laid at the feet of sugar, but I’m asking a different question. What is wrong with the flavor of our food that it requires syrup?

The average salad contains 2 to 6 grams of sugar from the dressing … interestingly, a balsamic vinaigrette is the worst offender. Is the flavor of the vegetables farmers produce so bland that it requires 2 to 6 grams of sugar to make it palatable?

In my own industry, the most popular additive to beef is barbecue sauce. A typical barbecue sauce will add 10 to 15 grams of sugar. For context, chocolate sauce on an ice cream sundae clocks in at 15 to 20 grams of sugar. In Japan, the typical seasoning for Kobe beef is salt and pepper. Is the beef I produce so lacking in flavor that it must be seasoned with sugar?

We in production agriculture focus on genetics, varieties and production systems. We will try to maximize yields and grow products that will garner the highest price in a governmental grading system. But at any point, do we ask: How does it taste? You could produce the most flavorful product, but if the next person in the production chain doesn’t recognize that flavor and is willing to pay for it, what good is it? Too often, we rely on the food processor or the chef to fix whatever flavor problem we may send them. Should we in the production chain ask: Is our product flavorful? Or do we take the bonbon approach and make chocolate-covered steaks?