Chocolate

I get personally offended when someone calls white confections ‘white chocolate.’

I don’t mean this in a serious way. But enough so that whenever someone says this in my presence, my friends will look me in the eye and recite, “It’s not chocolate.”

Yes, white ‘chocolate’ uses cocoa butter, thereby ‘technically’ qualifying it as such (please do excuse all my air quotes), whereas white confection uses vegetable oil and sugar – but for me, the key ingredient is missing: cocoa powder. (White ‘chocolate’ uses milk powder.) For me, it’s not chocolate if there’s no cocoa powder. (Or if it’s filled with all kinds of ‘extra stuff’ like PGRP, or polyglycerol polyricinoleate, an emulsifier made from glycerol and fatty acids. Or butyric acid, which means ‘the acid of butter’ because they first discovered it on rancid butter – and is known for causing a very unpleasant ordor. But yes – put these in my chocolate…?). Some well-known brands contain as little as 11% cocoa powder and a lot of unneeded ‘stuff’ that makes it taste waxy and gross… These things are added to make it cheap and to give it a longer shelf life.

Chocolate requires cocoa solids (the seeds/nibs, which are fermented, dried, roasted, then ground – the ration of cocoa powder to the rest of the ingredients is the ‘darkness’), cocoa butter (which stabilizes it and keeps it from melting at room temp), and sugar to sweeten it (plain cocoa powder is rather bitter). It’s that simple. And so tasty.

In 2015, I had the opportunity to be assistant director for a study abroad trip to Costa Rica, and we took the students on a chocolate tour. If possible, I was even more excited than the students to learn all about this process. That process starts here

with the cocoa fruit – where the magic exists. The fruit contains the cocoa seeds and the white substance cocoa butter (which actually had an almost mango taste to it):

We learned all about the process of harvesting the fruit, the seven days it takes for the seeds to ferment, two to dry, and then how they go about roasting it (pan roast versus fire). Yep, we’re over a week into the process, and it has yet to look anything like a proper chocolate bar. (Remember this the next time you balk at the price of a good bar of chocolate.)

Part of the tour involved a demonstration where the students were given the opportunity to hand grind the seeds (this was originally done with a slab of volcanic rock and a warmed rolling pin made of the same rock) and remove the husks (involves allowing the nibs and husks to cascade from one dish to another while blowing against the stream – the lighter husks will blow away while the heavier nibs continue to fall. (There are, of course, more modern ways this is done now. But it was fun to watch the students at work.)

After the demonstration, we were given the opportunity to sample the freshest chocolate I’ve ever had in my life – straight from the seed with a bit of raw sugar and cinnamon added. They also melted some down for us to drink as cocoa (and provided things like spices and sea salt to add to our liking).

Even before this experience, I preferred ‘good’ chocolate – meaning on the darker side and without the stuff they add that can also be used in things like making plastics (for things like the faces of signs, goggles, and screw driver handles), used in perfumes, herbicides, and as a leather tanning agent, and as a sweetening agent in gasoline… (not sure why gasoline needs a sweetening agent?)

I grew up on Fannie May (no, not the one associate with the mortgage crisis) and Seroogy’s. These days, my go-to is Alter Eco – they keep it simple. And delicious. (Check out their Brown Butter bar…) Lots of people default to the ‘cheap stuff’ – because yes, bars like Alter Eco cost more. But because it is so delicious, it takes less to satisfy and lasts longer. (And no, I am in no way affiliate with any of these companies. I was just looking for blog ideas, and a friend said – you know how you roll your eyes every time someone says the phrase ‘white chocolate’? 🤣¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

Do you have a favorite chocolate? Do you also get irked when people misuse the word ‘chocolate’?

(By the way, this was the Rainforest Chocolate Tour in San Carlos, Costa Rica. I’m in no way affiliated with them, either – just a good time if you ever find yourself in the area.)