After trekking out to Eden Hall farm, our group was welcomed with a tasty chocolate drink made with chocolate, milk and...what could that familiar yet distant taste be...chili pepper! I have tasted this type of drink before, particularly at Mon Amie chocolatier in the Strip District, yet this cold drink had a completely different taste from the hot drink I have had. Chocolate has served many purposes throughout history, from cacao seeds being used as a bitter chocolate beverage in ancient Mesopotamia in social and religious practices, to use as a form of Aztec money in trading practices, to various god sacrifices in ceremonies. (See my earlier discussion of John Lloyd Stephens’ and his interactions with chocolate in the Yucatan, Mocha and Mozart). At Chatham’s recent chocolate tasting event at Eden Hall farm, Emily Stone presented various chocolate producer’s takes on maintaining a local focus. Today in American consumer culture, Hershey’s Chocolate World characters become a focal point of worship, selling “1.377 billion compared to 1.342 billion in 2007” (http://www.csnews.com/csn/cat_management/confections/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003935034&imw=Y). That, is a lot of cacao seeds.
While many chocolate making companies are distinctly American such as Ghirardelli and Hershey, there are a large selection of small chocolate producers. We were able to taste chocolate from a few. My particular favorite was from John and Kira’s chocolate http://www.johnandkiras.com/s.nl/sc.1/.f?gclid=CKP-sJfroaACFQli2godIHOnYg&partner=johnandkira%27s. They produce chocolate based on local components, such as their spearmint chocolate is made with spearmint grown by a local elementary school in Philadelphia. This is their way of compensating for having to buy the cacao seeds from no further than 20 degrees away from the equator. The honey lavender ladybug was my absolute favorite. Biting into the beautiful yellow treat reminded me of gardening at home in the summer, picking lavender for a table decoration, or putting the oil into lemonade. We also tried unconched chocolate from the Grenada chocolate company http://www.grenadachocolate.com/. Conching is a European method of chocolate making that determines the smoothness of the product. A conche is a container filled with metal beads that grinds the chocolate that creates frictional heat to further break down the particles so it becomes smooth. The uneven and gritty texture of the Grenada chocolate combined with the spiciness of added chili pepper was entirely and entirely refreshing experience and offered a completely new take on chocolate for me.
Like the wine tasting, this Eden Hall farm excursion was sweet and enlightening!
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