Bacon and Chocolate

I was sifting through some blogs yesterday, and came across this story, Chocolate and... Bacon? , about a new chocolate bar by Vosges Haut-Chocolat with bacon. I have to say, this is not my first encounter with chocolate covered bacon. When I was a baby pastry chef at the FCI, my chef-instructor made little chocolate covered bacon candies as well as a red wine truffle. The truffle was not particularly good, but the bacon, was fantastic. It was a thick slice of bacon, cut into 1 cm pieces and cooked slowly until it was crisp-chewy. After the pieces were cooled, they were enrobed in dark chocolate. You couldn't eat more than one piece, it was pretty rich, but man, it was tasty.

Revisiting the bacon-chocolate issue made me think about my own weird flavors. In my line, I have several unusual combinations. In fact, I've made it part of my philosophy to find those good, unexpected combinations and make them. I started with salt and chocolate (the Sea Salt Caramel) and added pepper and chocolate (Pink Peppercorn Caramel) to balance the combination. It took many attempts to get it right, but I'm pretty pleased with the final result.

For me, chocolate is about a moment. I'd rather have one amazing piece of chocolate than a whole box full of something mediocre. With my candies, I hope I can re-create that for someone else. I'm trying to find that balance between unique flavor combinations and classic ones. I don't want them to be overpoweringly rich, but I'd like to find that a person savors each piece, instead of eating them quickly.

So, if you're reading, please, tell me, what are your favorite weird flavor combinations? (ideally they'd include chocolate, but all submissions are interesting!)