Hooked On the Weightloss Shake

I recently drove to San Francisco to attend a “chocolate festival.” My sister lives in Berkeley, she took me to the Scherfenberger chocolate factory the last time I visited, so I thought this would make a nice sequel.

I was expecting a sampling of fine world chocolates. Perhaps a master formula of belgian dark, or some nice Bolivian blends. The concept of the festival was that you paid $20 for a ticket book, then you hop from chocolate booth to chocolate booth, trading tickets for chocolate samples– better than a carnival!

My sister and I took the tram in on Saturday morning fully expecting the lines to be long for the best chocolates. We walked the final ten blocks to the festival, turned the corner and…

We faced a handful of stands set up in a semi-circle in an ill-traversed part of the tourist area near fisherman’s wharf. There were no dutch, no french, no Bolivian chocolates. There was Hershey’s, Lindt, and Nestles instead. The samples were bite sized junk candies, the kind you give kids for halloween. They sat in jars, the kind of jars you put candies in at halloween. Instead of chocolate connoisours displaying their finest, there were teen employees from the local candy marts.

But hey, at least there were no lines.

On the bright side, I did find a neat vitamin store in the area which led me to find some fun websites including a blog on omega 3 benefits.  

I’m a bit of a dark chocolate snob. I believe milk chocolate dulls the cocoa taste and just adds sugar. But now I may have legitimate reason to turn my nose up at milk chocolate…

Recently dark chocolate has become more popular due to it’s antioxidant properties. I’ve even heard argument that the dark chocolate made from the pure cocoa of certain Bolivian beans may be the best antioxidant out there. Well, apparently, all the antioxidant power of cocoa is negated by addition of milk into chocolate. Check out this report about the powers of dark chocolate compared to milk chocolate.

Regardless, taste comes first for most people in all matters of chocolate, and some people just like milk more than dark. I will admit that a well refined milk, especially if the manufacturers leave cocoa nubs in the mix, can be a wonderful thing. BTW, a nub has the texture of a coffee bean. It’s the actual unprocessed cocoa bean before any cocoa butter has been extracted. They are potent and unsweet and wonderful. Scharfenberger makes an excellent 60%dark chocolate nub bar. 

I’m a bit of a dark chocolate snob. I believe milk chocolate dulls the cocoa taste and just adds sugar. But now I may have legitimate reason to turn my nose up at milk chocolate… Recently dark chocolate has become more popular due to it’s antioxidant properties. Well, apparently, all the antioxidant power of cocoa is negated by addition of milk into chocolate: http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20030827/dark-chocolate-is-healthy-chocolate

 

I’m Lyndon Coolidge, and I was born to spread to the word about the powers of cocoa. This blog brings you the latest and greatest chocolate trivia.

There are some great jobs out there. For instance, the guy who rubs body oil on swimsuit models is just about the best job ever, though it very likely doesn’t exist. One job that does exist that fits my version of a fantasy is the bean tester. A bean tester is a person who travels the world in search of the best cocoa bean. There are only twelve actual chocolate factories in America, and each one has a highly paid bean tester.

Cocoa beans grow in tropical climates, so the bean tester spends most of his days in the sunny latitudes, traveling between beaches and jungles, conversing with local cocoa farmers. The main tool of the bean tester is called the Bean Guillotine. It is a small device that chops a cocoa bean in half so the tester can tell how ripe and how rich the cocoa beans are. He also carries with him a simple kit (think easy-bake oven, coffee grinder, and blow dryer) to create actual chocolate from the beans. Once he finds a farm with a good stock, he buys the entire lot and ships it back to the states. Because of this power to make or break a small town, bean testers are often treated as honored guests in the towns they visit. They mingle with the haute culture of elite chocolate connoisseurs and pastry chefs, and they mingle with the most down-to-earth cultures of the field workers and farmers of South America and Africa.

The bean tester isn’t necessarily the artist of the chocolate world, but he is the man the artists depend on.