The Virgin from the Chocolate Lagoon

From yesterday’s OC Register: Chocolate Virgin Mary still standing:

...“Hey let me just tell you she's the biggest celebrity,” said Bodega [Chocolates] owner Martucci Angiano, pointing to an encased chocolate figurine in what she said is the shape of a … Virgin Mary.

Angiano and the two women who discovered the seemingly holy candy under a drippy vat of dark chocolate in a kitchen about a year ago explained today how their lives have changed—and how the chocolate hasn't.

The detailed markings that brought out hundreds upon hundreds of faithful—some from as far away as Ontario, Canada—are still in tact [sic]. No mold. No melting.

Nothing is different, said Cruz Jacinto and María Luisa Morales, the two chocolate packagers who made the discovery on Aug. 14 of last year.

“Chocolate has a determined lifespan and just look at her,” Cruz said, pointing at the figurine she's dubbed a miracle. “It's love and sweetness, like the chocolate.”

Jacinto, a 27-year-old Costa Mesa resident who has worked at the store for about four years, carries a photo of the chocolate idol on her cellular phone.
Click and there she is.

…“I feel changed and more strong,” said Jacinto, who had questioned the existence of God to others days before the discovery….

Wow. The chocolate dripula hasn’t changed? Not in a year? What can possibly explain that?

But wait! There’s an old Almond Joy sitting on my sister’s refrigerator. Almond Joys are made of chocolate, aren’t they? This one looks pretty old. Years old. It's got dust on it.

Something, I know not what, makes me wanna open it.

Good Lord!—despite chocolate’s determined life span, this old Almond Joy has retained its original shape!

I went ahead and ate it.