well we could talk forever about chocolate, here is what i know, happy
if it answers your question :)
there are 3 main categories of chocolate now:
the black one should contain at least 70 % of cacao
the brown one contains lot of milk
the white one will only keep the butter of the cacao added with milk and sugar
The chocolate arrived in europe in the 16th century. I ve read on many
sites that colombus brought it to spain, but he didin t really care
when he saw it in honduras. Cortes who was around 15 years later
brought some back in spain to Charles Quint, maybe telling him that
this would make him stronger and a more effective in bed. He got it
from the azthecs and the mayas who cultivated it in the tropical
forests(Montezuma kindly offered him a chocolate drink one day). They
drank it with some mixed spicy water, here comes the name
"chocolatl"(amere water)
This was prepared by concassing roasting and cooking on a very hot
stone the cocoa seeds. It was then mixed with water, cinnamon,
vanilla, pepper and anis(just know this word in french). Try it , it s
well...special.I can tell you this is far away from what we know but
interesting....Some alcool in it is making it a bit better :P( i was
not there with cortes but tested it during the last century)
During the 16th century. The reciepes were kept secret in spain.
Anyone who would reveal it would die. But when the jewish people got
kicked out of spain,they arrived in france,in france, in bayonne,
where a big tradition still persist. They of course came with all
their choco knowledge.
From the end of the 16th and during all the 17th, it did spread trough
europe...italy in 1597 and then france, germany, england, belgium,
switzerland.
The taste of chocolate changed because in each country, one added and
removed elements but the way chocolate was prepared stayed the same.
workers were concassing cocoa seeds on a heated stone. The cocoa came
from different places as each countries tried to import and grow cocoa
from their colonies(african countries for france,uk, germany, jamaiqua
for uk etc...)
From then,chocolate went from hand made to industrial chocolate...
But now, what kind of cocoa is used?(it defines the taste)
well nowdays, 3 main groups of cocoa are in use , criollo, forasteros
from amazonia and trinitario
the criollo is the least amere one with a lot of aromas. In my opinion
criollo is the best and lot of people used to think like it. the
problem is that criollo is hard to cultivate, it is weather sensible
and get a lot of sicknesses.
forasteros
there we go, 80% of the world production is forasteros amazonia. it
comes from Brasil, en ecuador, central america, south america and
west africa. In it s original form this is hell amere(my test) and a
bit acid(erk) . but they are easy to cultivate and don t get as ill as
the criolo so that s the main source to fabricate chocolate nowdays
trinitario is 15% of the world production
it s a mix of forasteros and criollo, just god knows how it mixed and who did it
these 3 mains categories have a hard time those days because of
mutants , lot of them are hard to qualify.
But we re not in the shop yet and everything is not rubbish in the
chocolate world. The chocolate industry tries to control a bit the
quality of what is sold raw with an organism named cirad that goes all
over the world to taste and compare cocoa
we re not in the shop because of course, this is only raw material and
it has to be prepared and packaged to go to wallmartnextdoor or to
the old bakery near montmartre or even to the "chocolaterie" near my
appartment in rimouski Canada.
What happens between the cocoa tree and the chocolate thingie we eat
is unclear. Laws differ from country to country and taste will again
differ from one place to another.
In europe , a law just passed a law on the quantity of fat
authorized(too long to be explained here) and i basically think that
industrial chocolate, whoever makes it and whatever heart the put in
it just sucks.
I would rather advise you to go to a place where the seller or the
chocolate maker can tell you the fat quantity and the origin of the
cocoa he uses .
If the question is who does the best chocolate in the world, well,
france and swiss have a very good tradition in europe and lot of
countries who actually produce cocoa are able to make fantastic job.
Belgium is more into "praline" (kind of stuffed chocolate)
so if i would like to have some very good chocolate, i would go to an
old swiss chocolate house and ask for criollo made hande made
chocolate.
This is of course information on the top of my head, driven by my own
taste. you will find everywhere in the world people who produce
fantastic cocoa based products, all based on your own taste.
Final information i ve read recently because of the civil war in ivory
coast, the do produce 39% of the cocoa used in the world, I would have
a lot of links but they are all in french (i know it s bad but i can t
stop being french)
I will be happy o answer any further question regarding all aspects of cocoa
o
ps: i hope my english is readable |
