Marshmallow Chicks and Chocolate Jesus

By Peter Fredson

March 3, 2007

This is the time when Christian churches give out palm fronts, while people put ashes on their foreheads, eat Christ’s body, drink the blood of Jesus and make signs of crosses in the air. For me, the hero on the cross was Spartacus, but I know that other people disagree and do not celebrate his crucifixion.

Some people dye little chicks pink and blue, while others have fuzzy chick replicas made of pink and blue marshmallow. Other people buy rabbits made of chocolate, usually hollow nowadays as solid chocolate costs a lot. I used to bite their ears off first.

Years ago I facetiously wondered if people would make fuzzy images of Jesus out of pink and blue marshmallow, or perhaps make chocolate images of Jesus, both solid and hollow and perhaps give him big rabbit ears to bite off first.

In that way we could avoid cruelty to bunnies and little chickies. To wash the whole gooey mess down we could make a purple beverage and call it "True Blood of Jesus."

So it was a surprise when I found that someone had anticipated my thought.

Recently Cosimo Cavallaro carved a six-foot-high sculpture of Jesus, to be called, "My Sweet Lord", with outspread arms and anatomically correct other parts, made of 200 pounds of milk chocolate.

The sculpture would be suspended 18 inches above a cross chalked onto the floor

It was to be displayed at a Manhattan gallery but the hotel housing the gallery cancelled the exhibit because the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights threatened a boycott.

The spokesperson for the League said it was an "assault on Christians", and "They would never dare do something similar with a chocolate statue of Mohammed naked with his genitals exposed during Ramadan."

Some people stated that at least a loincloth could have been put on Jesus.
Mr. Cavallaro answered: "The whole thing of putting on the loincloth, I find it ridiculous," he said. "There’s nothing to hide. There’s nothing shameful about this."

I imagine that a similar statue made of marshmallow would also be regarded as either shameful or tasteless. Certainly it would be no Michaelangelo’s David. But I would still bite the ears off first.