In December 2023, a TikTok influencer called Maria Vehera opened a packet of ‘Dubai chocolate’ in her car and filmed herself eating it. Since then, 124.6 million people have watched her swallowing this pistachio-based gloop.
Oh Maria, what have you done? A butterfly flaps its wings – or an influencer eats some chocolate – and soon people are setting their alarms for 5 a.m. to queue outside Lidl for the ‘drop’ of LIDL’S OWN DUBAI CHOCOLATE.
Guess what? M&S made one too (£8.50). Morrisons then had the bright idea of creating a pistachio cream Easter egg. Waitrose’s Dubai chocolate was so popular it had to ration it to two bars per person. Knock-off brands now feature at the counter of almost every news-agent in London. In St James’s Park Tube station, I bought Bolci’s ‘Kadayif Chocolate with Pistachio’ for £7.50. It was cloying and made me thirsty. I looked at the ingredients. Ah, yes: sunflower lecithin and polyglycerol polyricinoleate. Just like Mama used to make it.
The cliché has it that when America sneezes, Britain catches a cold. London wanted to be New York, Canary Wharf tried to ape Wall Street, and Sloane Rangers started wearing Ralph Lauren. But what if the cold is now travelling east to west, from Dubai to Britain? Scores of young Brits are moving to Dubai. But, more unexpectedly, Dubai’s culture is coming back at us. The chocolate is just the latest symptom. Today’s young look at America and see – pick your disaster – chaos, economic meltdown, fascism, racism, mass deportation. Then they look at Dubai and see… oooh, pistachio!
This is misguided, of course.
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