Chocolate Month: February Musings

I started the year by looking simultaneously backward and forward. Such a back-and-forth glance is an expression not only of my general inability to catch up but of the inherent tension at work here between journalistic and imaginative instincts. Put another way, novelty is overrated while renewal (while nearly impossible) is inspired. So, for the second month in a row, I will attempt to reinvigorate resources from years past.

A few weeks ago, I received an email from Tim McCollum at Madecasse, asking about their "tree-to-bean-to-bar" chocolate made in Madagascar. My response is that I savored each carefully packaged and labeled sample that Tim sent but I undermined the scientific tasting process by indulging myself in them before bed, letting the 63-70% products mingle among the books on my nightstand. I will say that I agree with all of the characterizations of the chocolate that Tim included in his letter to me: the not-yet-released 75% is more subtly roasted (and thus packs a more nuanced flavor) than the currently-available 75%, and the 67% is the most impressive of the lot. If asked to give my own analysis, I would say that the 67% has a flavor that unexpectedly suggests raspberries. However, I'm reluctant to take that kind of tastes-like cataloging any further today. My reasons lie in the conclusion to the ekphrastic essay by poet Mark Doty Still Life with Oysters and Lemon:

What makes a poem a poem, finally, is that it is unparaphrasable. There is no other way to say exactly this; it exists only in its own body of language, only in these words. I may try to explain it or represent it in other terms, but then some element of its life will always be missing.

Metaphor expands, embodies creativity. Clinical explanation reduces, boils down insight to keywords. To call my taste experience "raspberry" is the opposite of rendering the inchoate, ineffable sensory experience of tasting in metaphor. I would rather say it sent me moving through a viscous somnambulance. You can invent the raspberries on your own.

I've received a number of other tidings since the beginning of 2009, among them, word of stalwart Valrhona's naming of San Francisco chocolatier Michael Recchiuti as their American chocolate "ambassador," timed to the release of what I understand are some brand new blends and bars. (Recchiuti, along with a lovely Guatemalan cacao farmer named Neto Porras and several other chocolate professionals in several countries, no doubt has come to the conclusion that I'm either deeply disturbed or deeply ungrateful since I've been utterly out of touch since our last meetings--please accept my apology, guys--I was just looking for the right words.) Amano has a new chocolate (in new packaging) too: it's called Jembrana. The sultry New Orleans chocolatiers Sucre sent me an early Valentine: a box packed with half a dozen ganache-filled hearts. And Ten Speed press sent up a flair about their new publication, called Give the Bitch Back Her Chocolate. It's a series of word-and-vintage-image pairings, most more sleazy than seductive, and I hope you won't make such a very direct connection between this writer and that title, but the collection give me a wonderful image to ruminate on.

As I take another look back, I recall that Scharffen Berger (whose Ibex logo has served as my muse cast in chocolate) announced its sale to Hershey within days of me starting this blog over three years ago. This post is timed to the news that Hershey will close the beloved Berkeley plant. I mourn the loss absolutely, but prefer to focus on smaller pleasures. Like metaphors that may or may not include raspberries.

New Year, Old Bread, Claudio Corallo Chocolate, and Coconut Oil

A while ago--I can't remember exactly when, but I can tell you it was another year--a man who had recently left his family's scrap metal business to pursue a career as a scrap metal sculptor asked me what I wanted in life. "I want to always have new experiences," I said. "And I want to have a constant sense of who I am and what I'm doing."

"Are you listening to yourself?" this guy asked me. "How can you always be doing something new and be constant?"

By harvesting contraction, I suppose. And by recognizing the human willingness to become trapped in such contradiction. I'm leery of announcing that I want anything in particular for or from the year 2009 (and yet this very writing suggests that I am somehow compelled to announce that very thing), but what I want hasn't changed much since that conversation with the sculptor: change, consistency. And, in fact, I have the same plans for Chocolate in Context, as the blog moves from 2008 into 2009. I'll still be writing about chocolate as it relates to cooking, travel, society, pleasure, pain, and other things. I'll make announcements, changes, regular updates, irregular updates. I'll rest comfortably on what I've already done, and then do something uncomfortably different.

As you, reader, look forward to everything new in 2009, you'll no doubt have to rely on a couple of things that are old as well. As you begin to think through that contradiction, I recommend that you whip up a batch of Lunatic French Toast, developed by Robinson Crusoe-esque chocolate maker Claudio Corallo (he lives on the volcanic African islands of Sao Tome and Principe). The recipe calls for coconut oil (which gives the breakfast dish a wildness that's almost symbolic) and "old-ish bread," which you may have left over from 2008. Claudio Corallo's US distributor, James Clark (whom I interviewed a few months ago) generously shared the recipe:

Lunatic French Toast
1 Egg
1/2 cup milk
Slices of old-ish bread
Coconut oil or butter
Your favorite Claudio Corallo Chocolate

Directions:
Whisk the egg and milk together. Heat a heavy skillet and melt some coconut oil or butter in the bottom. Soak your bread in the "custard" and fry gently on both sides over low to medium heat. When each slice is done, remove it from the pan and place on top a piece of chocolate the size of a pat of butter

After a minute or so, the chocolate should be melted enough to spread over the top of your French Toast. You won't need any syrup. If you are using the 100% cacao, you might enjoy sprinkling a tiny bit of granulated sugar on top. Now think about it: your bittersweet chocolate is less insulin-y than a gob of syrup would have been, you have protein from the egg...nutritionally you're set, and if you used coconut oil, you're jammin'. But obviously nobody eats French Toast because it's good for you...