In a small Scottish town, a vegan chocolatier has made headlines for her incredible achievement of having her chocolates featured in the gift bags for the upcoming Oscars. Fiona McArthur, 37, opened her chocolate shop, “Fetcha”, in Campbeltown in 2019 and has since caught the attention of the company responsible for assembling the Academy Awards goody bags.
At first, McArthur thought it was a hoax when she received the offer to have her chocolates included in the gift packs worth tens of thousands of dollars for the March 10 ceremony. But after verifying the firm online, she realized that it was a genuine opportunity. “It’s mind-blowing! I can’t believe it still,” she told AFP in an interview. “The best director, best actor, actress, supporting actor, and supporting actress – they all get one of my boxes. I’m really excited… it’s amazing!” she added.
As a film buff, McArthur saw most of the nominated films at her local art-deco cinema, which opened in 1913. She even took a notebook with her to jot down ideas for the tailor-made boxes to come. In the end, she designed six different vegan chocolates inspired by this year’s biggest films.
One of her creations, the “Oppenheimer” chocolate, is inspired by the 13-Oscars nominated drama about the father of the atomic bomb. It resembles a ball of fire with its yellow and orange truffle, hard shell, and popping candy filling. “So, when you bite through, it kind of explodes in your mouth,” McArthur explained. “And then there’s a chili after-burn that heats up your tongue.”
For the dark comedy “Poor Things”, a female “Frankenstein” story up for 11 awards, McArthur based her chocolate on Portuguese “pastel de nata” egg tarts, which the lead character Bella Baxter gorges on in the film. The inside of the chocolate is custard-flavored, with cinnamon on top to give it a baked look.
McArthur also created a heart-shaped pink chocolate flavored with strawberry and rose to represent “Barbie”. But the hearts are “kind of rough… like her journey through Barbieland into the real world is not a smooth journey, it’s full of angles,” she noted.
In honor of the legendary US composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein, McArthur created depictions of musical note bars from cocoa butter for the film “Maestro”. She delicately imprinted them on the chocolates, which also contain a salt and pepper filling to represent Bernstein and his wife Felicia’s “separate… but together” lives.
Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” is honored using dark chocolate and caramel ganache with flecks of lilac, yellow, and green. And lastly, “The Holdovers” is reimagined as a dark chocolate shell with cherry and ice cream interior.
Before sealing each of her boxes and shipping them by post to Los Angeles, McArthur included a booklet explaining the inspirations behind her sweet creations. It is a long way to Tinseltown from her mother’s humble Campbeltown kitchen, where she honed her skills.
Part of McArthur’s Hollywood appeal may be that she runs the “luxury micro-business” with environmentalism and health consciousness at the forefront. As a vegan herself, she ensures that her chocolates are vegan, gluten-free, and made with organic and fair-trade ingredients as much as possible. Her Oscars creations are also alcohol-free.
Fiona McArthur’s journey from a small Scottish town to the Oscars is truly a remarkable one. Her passion for film and chocolate has led her to create unique and delicious treats that will be enjoyed by some of the biggest names in Hollywood. Her dedication to environmentalism and health consciousness only adds to the appeal of her luxury chocolates. We can’t wait to see what she comes up with next!
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