Tag: Perugina

Loco for Cocoa

In the last few weeks a purchase of pure gold reached a record high of over $2,400 an ounce. Thanks to uncertain global markets and a stepped-up demand from China, the precious metal is a more popular investment than ever. I find it amazing you can stroll into your local Costco and add gold bars to your shopping basket.  The promo was so popular however, Costco ran out of their allotment in a couple of months.  But here’s an even bigger concern. I’m worried Costco’s going to run out of chocolate.

It takes a bold headline to get me to read the article, and here’s a recent example: Chocolate Might Never Be the Same.  What I hoped would be several paragraphs about a newer or even healthier spin on my favorite confection was anything but.  Instead, I was stopped dead in my reading glasses when I saw the words “global shortage”.  It seems the world’s supply of cacao beans, which come primarily from West Africa, has been threatened by climate change.

precious metal ingredient

What I found interesting in the story was not so much the reasons for the shortage (drought, disease, aging cacao trees) but rather the speculation on how chocolate as we know it will change.  Right away, of course, the cost of high-end products will increase (chocolate was already up 10% in 2023).  Down the road, the powers that be may even relax the definition of “chocolate”, which currently requires (only) 10% of a product’s weight in cocoa.  And further down the road you’ll find faux chocolate, which doesn’t contain any cocoa at all.  Kind of like an Impossible Burger.

My relationship with chocolate, one that has matured beautifully over sixty-plus years, feels a little threatened.  Like most kids growing up in the 1960s, I loved Hershey bars… and a lot of other candies that gifted me a mouthful of cavities.  Then as a teenager, most of those candies fell by the wayside in favor of chocolate bars like 3 Musketeers, Milky Way, and Snickers.  But technically each of those is a “candy bar”, where the only chocolate to be found is the outside coating.

childhood chocolate

I credit three products for developing my taste for “just chocolate”.  First, Nestle’s Toll House Morsels, a bag of which could always be found in my mother’s pantry.  Second, Chunky’s foil-covered blocks, which brought appeal to, literally, consuming chunk chocolate.  Finally, Ghirardelli’s “Flicks”, colorful foil-covered tubes of what can only be described as oversized Toll House Morsels, sold alongside the popcorn and boxed candies at the movie theater.

theater chocolate

Little did I know at the time, I was nowhere near the best that chocolate had to offer.  A college year in Europe introduced me to more exotic brands like Perugina, Lindt, and Toblerone, and my taste for chocolate quickly matured from the milk to the dark varieties.  Here’s how far I’ve come since then.  The percentage of cocoa in a pure bar of Lindt chocolate starts at 70% (and goes all the way to 100% if you’re so bold).  My preference? 78%, a far cry from the minimum 10% definition of chocolate.  And a far cry from the chocolate bars of my youth.

We’re fortunate to have an authentic Belgian chocolate shop here in our small town.  Its proprietor was trained as a chocolate artisan in Belgium, and her creations start with Callebaut chocolate (also from Belgium).  Her truffles, as you can imagine, are exquisite.  The pure chocolate nibs she sells by the pound are even better.  And yet, as if to underscore today’s topic, her shop’s website now warns in a big, bold font: … at this time we are no longer able to accommodate wholesale prices.  Meaning her big buyers are now paying as much as we smaller ones.  Meaning chocolate is getting more expensive.

If the quality chocolate I’ve learned to love rises to price points I can’t digest, I might be forced to relive my childhood and settle for the “satisfaction” a milk chocolate Snickers bar claims to provide.  It’s a regression I don’t look forward to, but at least it beats faux chocolate.  Come to think of it, I should pick up a few of those gold bars at Costco. Maybe my Belgian chocolate shop takes more than cash or credit these days.

Some content sourced from The Atlantic article, “Chocolate Might Never Be the Same”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Confection Perfection

While grocery shopping the other day, my wife asked me if I’d eat something containing “77% dark chocolate”. I replied casually, “No, my limit’s more like 72%”. To those in the know, the percentages refer to the cacao content; not the broader term “chocolate”. And that level of technical shows you how far I’ve come from the 3 Musketeers bar of my youth.

Each of us taps into our particular coping mechanisms as we deal with impacts of the pandemic. My wife spends countless hours playing brain games on her iPad. More of my neighbors take daily walks than I’ve ever seen before. Me? I’m getting lost in a few rainy-day projects, but more to the subject at hand, I’m tapping into my dark chocolate stash. There’s something therapeutic about a small square of the good stuff slowly dissolving on the tongue.  Dark chocolate is medication for troubled times.  It sates my soul.

I can’t recall when I graduated from “candy bar” to “chocolate bar”, let alone dark chocolate.  Like most kids of the 1970’s, I was drawn to Milky Way, Snickers, Nestle Crunch and the like, due to an annual dose of “fun-size” every Halloween.  But somewhere I had an epiphany and realized chocolate was pretty good all by itself. The clincher: studying abroad in Italy during college.  Overnight it seemed, I graduated from the products of Hershey’s and Mars to the more refined of Perugina and Ferrero. 

The Wall Street Journal recently interviewed Thierry Muret, the executive chef chocolatier at Godiva, and after reading the article I thought, “Now there’s a dream job”.  Not so fast, Mr. Goodbar.  Turns out Monsieur Muret is an industrial chemistry grad who leans heavily on his knowledge of science to create Godiva-worthy delicacies.  Muret’s all about “molecular gastronomy”, or decomposing/recomposing the very elements of chocolate to develop new textures and tastes.  Think about that the next time you bite into a Godiva truffle.

This much I know.  Chocolate’s most common varieties are “milk”, “dark”, and “white”, and while each contains cocoa butter, they’re better defined by their other ingredients (i.e. the dairy in “milk”).  My taste for dark chocolate evolved over a lot of years, the way my coffee matured from “instant” to “espresso”, and my wine from “Chardonnay” to “Cabernet”.  The basic versions simply don’t cut it anymore.

Thanks to Monsieur Muret, this much I don’t know about chocolate.  There’s a tight temperature range (65°-75° F) where fine chocolate can be “tempered” (shaped into truffles, etc.) without altering its delicate flavor.  There’s also a tight time frame to temper, because you don’t want the temperature to fluctuate more than a degree or two.  But Muret colors outside of the lines.  He throws temperature and time frame to the wind to concoct new textures and tastes.  He once spent an entire year perfecting a single ganache.  Whoa; that’s taking it to a whole new level.

The path to chocolatier typically goes through culinary school, not the chemistry lab.  You start with a pastry degree (pastry degree?) and then specialize in chocolate/confections.  Nope, not what I studied in college – not even close.  But I do deserve a “tasting degree” for my years of experience.

If the pandemic goes on long enough, I may find the shelves of our grocery store devoid of dark chocolate.  No problem: I’ll settle for a good ol’ 3 Musketeers bar instead.  Milk chocolate (not to mention the dose of childhood nostalgia) is a passable backup coping mechanism.

The so-called experts say there’s “no high-quality evidence that dark chocolate provides health benefits”.  With coping in mind, I couldn’t disagree more.

Some content sourced from the 2/7/2020 Wall Street Journal article, “Nothing Could Be Sweeter Than Being Godiva’s Top Chocolate Chef”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.