I don't really have a sweet tooth. An egg allergy has meant that most conventional desserts are firmly off the menu. This, combined with a hatred of gelatinous textures, means that I've never had much time for sweet stuff.
There is an exception to this. Chocolate. I love it. Not just any chocolate of course. That would be too simple. White chocolate is too sweet and sickly. Dark chocolate too bitter to do much other than cook with. That leaves milk chocolate. With fruit? Blasphemy! Nuts? Tolerable. As long as they're not peanuts otherwise I get a little bit dead. Caramel? No chance. That leaves nice, simple slabs of chocolate.
For years I have munched down chocolate without really thinking about where it came from or how it was made. This lasted until the other weekend when I visited the chocolate experience in York.
Things started well. We got quite a reception. The staff evidently enjoy the product: nothing to do with their weight, everything to do with the fact that they were all mildly hyper! We got an excellent tour. Our guide gave us an excellent talk on the history of the chocolate industry followed by a detailed description of the manufacture process. The level of the talk was perfect; enough detail for a geek like me but simple enough to keep the kids on the tour entertained. Critically, the talk was punctuated by plenty of free samples.
A particular highlight came at the end. We were given a tutored tasting and a demonstration on how to taste chocolate properly as if we were chocolatier. Now I know that in most cases where chocolate is involve, more is generally regarded at better but it's useful to have a framework in which I could think about the chocolate in more detail if I wanted to.
Fortunately, the tour wasn't entirely academic. We had a few practical work shops at the end as well. First was making a chocolate lollipop. Sadly this sounds far more involved than it actually was. In reality, it consisted of little more than applying chocolate sprinkles to molten chocolate on a stick. Although not exactly technically complex, the results were tasty! Finally we had a demonstration of making chocolate from a proper chocolatier. As always, it was a pleasure to watch an expert at work and try a few esoteric flavour combinations to boot.
In conclusion, the whole experience was great fun. I learned a lot about the history of chocolate making in this country and a lot about the best ways of tasting chocolate. While the practical activities were a wee bit disappointing, the extensive amount of chocolate available made up for it!
TFB
There is an exception to this. Chocolate. I love it. Not just any chocolate of course. That would be too simple. White chocolate is too sweet and sickly. Dark chocolate too bitter to do much other than cook with. That leaves milk chocolate. With fruit? Blasphemy! Nuts? Tolerable. As long as they're not peanuts otherwise I get a little bit dead. Caramel? No chance. That leaves nice, simple slabs of chocolate.
For years I have munched down chocolate without really thinking about where it came from or how it was made. This lasted until the other weekend when I visited the chocolate experience in York.
Things started well. We got quite a reception. The staff evidently enjoy the product: nothing to do with their weight, everything to do with the fact that they were all mildly hyper! We got an excellent tour. Our guide gave us an excellent talk on the history of the chocolate industry followed by a detailed description of the manufacture process. The level of the talk was perfect; enough detail for a geek like me but simple enough to keep the kids on the tour entertained. Critically, the talk was punctuated by plenty of free samples.
A particular highlight came at the end. We were given a tutored tasting and a demonstration on how to taste chocolate properly as if we were chocolatier. Now I know that in most cases where chocolate is involve, more is generally regarded at better but it's useful to have a framework in which I could think about the chocolate in more detail if I wanted to.
Fortunately, the tour wasn't entirely academic. We had a few practical work shops at the end as well. First was making a chocolate lollipop. Sadly this sounds far more involved than it actually was. In reality, it consisted of little more than applying chocolate sprinkles to molten chocolate on a stick. Although not exactly technically complex, the results were tasty! Finally we had a demonstration of making chocolate from a proper chocolatier. As always, it was a pleasure to watch an expert at work and try a few esoteric flavour combinations to boot.
In conclusion, the whole experience was great fun. I learned a lot about the history of chocolate making in this country and a lot about the best ways of tasting chocolate. While the practical activities were a wee bit disappointing, the extensive amount of chocolate available made up for it!
TFB
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