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Since probably forever, there has been a connection in people's minds between chocolate and wine. From personal experience I knew that the conventional wisdom about pairing chocolate and wine (dark chocolate goes with red wine) was just about as useful as the advice about pairing wine and flesh (red wine goes with meat, white wine goes with fish). There are enough exceptions to that rule to fill a very large book.
So, the fourth chapter ended up being all about pairing various kinds of chocolates with various kinds of wines and spirits.
The first...]]>
Fortunately, holidays and festivals that do celebrate chocolate are quite common. March may be most famous for its Ides, the Vernal Equinox, St Patrick's Day, Purim, and for being National Women's History Month, but it is also host to National Peanut Butter Lover's Day (March 1st - there is also a National Peanut Butter Lover's Month: November), National Caramel Day (March 19th), and American Chocolate Week (the third week of the month).
Chocolate festivals held in March include the Oregon Chocolate Festival and the Austin Chocolate Festival -- neither of which actually takes place during American Chocolate Week for some reason.
May 15th is National Chocolate Chip Day; June is National Candy Month; July holds court...]]>
Throughout its long and illustrious recorded history, chocolate and its main ingredient -- T. cacao, the Food of the Gods -- has been closely associated with the libido. The Spanish Conquistadores reported that the Aztec Emperor Montezuma quaffed 50 or more goblets of the heady chocolate drink each day, to increase his stamina.
More recently, both the Marquis de Sade and Casanova, both notorious lovers (their notoriety for very different reasons) and also notorious lovers of chocolate in life as well as in literature claimed chocolate excited the venereal appetites.
But is chocolate REALLY an aphrodisiac? Did Montezuma, Casanova, and the Marquis de Sade know something we don't? Much depends on what you mean by aphrodisiac.
If what you mean by aphrodisiac is a substance that will "make" an object of your desire want to have intimate relations with you -- RIGHT NOW! -- then it's my sad duty to inform you that chocolate...]]>
The top line is that chocolate (or more specifically cacao) is a powerhouse of nutritional benefits that can -- and probably should -- be enjoyed as a part of a healthy lifestyle. The challenge is to know what
-- and how much -- to eat.
The seeds of the cacao tree are one of Nature's wonders. Cacao seeds contain one of the highest concentrations and one of the widest varieties of antioxidant compounds in the plant kingdom. It is this double-whammy of quantity and variety that contributes to chocolate's potential health benefits.
Cacao can have...]]>
one: A Chocophile's Top Seven List/Resolutions for 2008.
7. Clean out my chocolate cellar.
Some people have wine cellars but I have a chocolate cellar in my basement office. There I store the chocolate I receive to taste and review as well as the chocolate I sell on my Web site, DiscoverChocolate.com (click on the "Shop" tab). At the end of the year, right after the holiday gifting season, the cellar (which is a room about six feet square) looks like a tornado hit it. So, it's time to go through...]]>
Why is that? Well, probably because chocolate wasn't known to any major organized religion until the 1500s, and for centuries chocolate was at the center of an arcane theological struggle in the Catholic church: Was chocolate a food or a beverage? IF chocolate was a beverage it could be consumed during times of fasting (after midnight and before Sunday mass and during Lent) but if it was a food it could not. The argument raged for well over 100 years and even popes weighed in on the matter (on both sides, clearing nothing up).
Believe it or...]]>
The wild turkey is native to the New World. For centuries before the arrival of Europeans, the peoples of Central America feasted on turkeys and other birds and casseroles of turkey prepared with chilies, tomatoes, and ground nuts and seeds. The turkey -- also pavo or guajolote -- is one of the most important foods in the Yucatan still today, and no festival can be considered to be complete without mole poblano de guajolote.
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The word mole comes from the the Nahuatl word "moli" (also molli) which means "mixture" or "concoction." There are many different...]]>
Much -- if not most -- of the cacao grown in the world is de-facto organic even though it is not certified organic for the simple reason that most cacao farmers are too poor to be able to afford any sort of natural agricultural input (e.g. fertilizers, insecticides) let alone synthetic ones. What many people also don't understand is that cacao trees are pollinated by tiny insects called midges so the use of most chemical insecticides is out of the question anyway.
There is a "darker" side of the organic movement that many people don't realize, which is that farmers who can't afford to buy fertilizer are also too poor to pay for organic certification.
Qualifying for organic certification is a long and arduous process that takes several years. During the transition period from non-organic to organic, farmers generally see their costs increase but can't charge more for their goods because they...]]>
While chocolate and wine share many characteristics, chocolate is very different from wine in one very important respect: people (at least in Western cultures) tend to start eating chocolate at a very young age before their sense of taste is fully developed. It is really not possible to start appreciating wine (and coffee and other foods) until the taste buds responsible for the ability to enjoy bitter tastes start to develop. Because of this, our tastes in chocolate as adults are often based on the chocolates we ate on special occasions as children, and it is one reason why many people like sweet milk chocolate and candies all their life.
I grew up in Southern California, so special occasion chocolate for me meant two things: the box of See's Victoria English Toffee we bought every year for my mother at Christmas and the box of Bauer's Bavarian Mints we gave my...]]>
When I tell people that I am a chocolate critic I tend to get four responses:
1. No way there is such a thing as a chocolate critic. (Way.)
2. How did you become a chocolate critic? (Tasting lots of chocolate.)
3. Who elected you? (I did.)
4. That has to be one of the coolest jobs in the world. (It is.)
When I was in college I had no idea that I would eventually become a chocolate critic. I got a BFA in Photography from a well-known art school (RISD) and right out of school started working with high technology companies in areas ranging from computer graphics software development, to interactive multimedia, to HDTV production (back in 1991 -- way ahead of the curve on that one), and the Internet. One constant aspect of my job roles over the course of nearly twenty years was to find a way to...]]>
