Truffle hunting

What is it about chocolate?

I was at a party where one of the guests had made truffles with an ingredient that I have never heard of . . . tonka bean. It isn't used in US cooking because the FDA has banned it. In large doses tonka can be a lethal anti-coagulant. But in the truffle that melted on my tongue it was a vibrant relative of vanilla, with hints of cinnamon, cloves, and almonds. As if the tame vanilla of--let's say a hostess twinkie--had gone to South America and now emoted Carmen Miranda. Zing-badda-boom.

I must eat chocolate nearly every day. At work we serve chocolates at long meetings, just as attention wavers the theobromines gives us new focus and amity. I know some, a few odd people, don't like it. And dogs shouldn't like it but they do. They can't break it down. And it's so good they'll keep eating non-stop until it kills them. Our dachshund ate some mislaid Halloween chocolate bars and shivered, panted and sicked up for a day. I wonder if she would have a problem with tonka?

Nobody has legislated for no chocolate to protect dogs. Seems as if a little tonka could be allowed into the food American humans eat, they use it in Europe. Unlike dogs, we wouldn't eat it until we died, would we?