Who dares challenge the rule of chocolate?

Dessert supreme, indulgence, candy bag stashed in the bottom of a purse, birthday treat, solace after a bad date, balm for the brokenhearted — there is no occasion chocolate cannot command. Even funeral homes leave dishes of chocolate mints next to the door to expunge the bitter taste of death from mourners’ mouths.

So what’s it like for a teetotalerer in this land lapped by cacao?

Incredibly, there are people who don’t like chocolate.

Fortified with a bag of M&Ms, I set out to question a few of these eccentrics. I wanted to see how this gastronomic minority survived deep in the heart of the chocolate empire. What did they nibble on during the Academy Awards?

First, I called upon my bosom friend Henry. He and I agree on just about all the vital issues in life — politics, college basketball, 1980s dance moves — except this chocolate business. Though Henry is a lawyer and will fight injustice wherever he finds it, I found him resigned to the overbearing presence of chocolate. Also to the fact that he regularly has to buy chocolate even though he can’t eat it.

“I realized the other night that I have been losing money on chocolate for years,” he told me, describing a typical night out with his wife and friends. “Dinner and wine are cleared from the table. Dessert menus passed. ‘The Icebox Chocolate Cake looks great,’ someone says. One is ordered for the table. Piece of cake arrives; waitress brings four forks. Only three are used.”

Henry long ago accepted that his party invariably orders the chocolate cake, even when every person present knows he doesn’t eat chocolate.

“But isn’t that rude?” I protested, wondering meanwhile if I had been at his table one of those nights. “We’re all your friends. Shouldn’t we consider your dessert needs, too, and just order crème brulee?”

“When you decline chocolate, everyone assumes that you’re allergic,” Henry said ruefully. “I say, ‘No, I just don’t like it.’ Then they look at you like everyone was looking at the woman on Project Runway who wrote in her journal backwards.”

Ah, the searing brand of stigma. Chocolate can hurt you, and not just when you eat too much.

This revelation led me to a further question: Is chocolate disliking a “lifestyle?” What could be more chic, more countercultural, after all, than rejecting chocolate? Or is it something people inherit at birth?

I found an answer in the blog of a nutritionist, Acacia Larson, who had renounced chocolate at a tender age. (Her mother must have cried for weeks.) Acacia wrote:

“It’s not that I am a chocolate hater, I just don’t loooove chocolate the way other people do. Celebrations are always all about chocolate cake, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate bars, etc. On my 12th birthday, I actually asked for pecan pie … The faculty at the esteemed institution where I obtained my training in nutrition used to joke that a penchant for chocolate was a requirement for admission. This little truth-teller had to work very hard to keep her dirty secret under wraps.”

This last part about keeping chocolate secrets disturbed me deeply. Did any of my friends and family possess a hidden malice for chocolate? I’d have to keep closer tabs on who dipped into — and who subtly avoided — the communal Snickers stash.

In terms of the nature-nurture debate, it looks like nature may play a surprisingly large role in shaping our tastes. Indeed, when I asked Acacia about this point, she told me that some researchers think taste preferences may be formed by the we’re 5 years old!

But Acacia also made a heartening disclosure: After a lifetime disliking chocolate, she discovered a form that she actually enjoyed. “I have finally found my chocolate weakness … Theo Chocolates. They buy Cacao directly from farms in places like Guatemala and Ecuador, everything is fair trade, and they make the chocolate themselves in their magical chocolate factory.”

At first, Acacia’s conversion experience stoked my suspicions. Maybe people who dislike chocolate don’t dislike chocolate per se; maybe they just haven’t met the right chocolate. Maybe one nibble on a Viennese truffle will nudge them in a careening, binging career as a chocoholic.

But was it really so farfetched that folks might not like this most popular of desserts? After some reflection, I remembered that I don’t enjoy other super-popular dishes, including filet mignon. The palate is a strange animal, and it does not respond to reason.

Besides, if everyone liked chocolate, there’d be less to go around. And the last thing our strife-ridden world needs is a chocolate shortage.

Therefore: Chocolate dislikers, I extend the hand of friendship to you. Come out from hiding. The rest of us embrace you. Crème brulee for everyone.