The World’s Greatest Chocolate Show

After the many years of living here, I have developed a Pavlovian association of certain seasons with certain events.   October, when the first wrinkled brown leaves start to scatter along the sidewalks and the air takes on a certain cool crispness, I start to think of chocolate!  It has nothing to do with wanting to eat more chocolate at all, but tis the season when the world’s greatest chocolate show comes to Paris.

The Salon de Chocolate is always fun, if not extremely crowded, but worth putting up bumping into others to get at least an eyeful and a smidgen of the world’s best chocolates.  As I have said before, I don’t go there to get my fill of chocolate, as for me a little goes a long way, but for the free pastry lessons from some of the world’s greatest pastry chefs.

Chocolate, like wine  has to be approached with prudence, otherwise you end up overwhelming your palate.  Like wine, I find my taste for chocolates can vary, depending on my mood, though I will generally reach for dark  with very little sugar.

Americans who have grown up with  overly sugared chocolate, laden with artificial vanillin and emulsifiers might have little knowledge nor taste for great chocolate.   Good chocolate depends on the variety of  cocoa beans, which can render many different tastes and aromas depending on where it was grown, the fermentation process, how it was roasted(torrefaction) and the skill of the chocolate maker.

You can tell a lot about the quality of good chocolate before you even put it in your mouth.  First is should look shiny, never clouded or whitened, which designates poor storage. It should be at room temperature, not cold from being kept in the refrigerator.

Breaking off a piece of a tablet, it should sound distinctly clear.  Good chocolate has a high amount of cocoa butter and will start to melt in the palm of your closed hand or even fingertips; if not, it is not good quality.

Like wine, there is a proper way to taste fine chocolates, in order to fully appreciate them. First there is the tantalising aroma that prepares your palate, which means sniffing several times before putting the piece in your mouth.  There is the first taste and then the aftertaste to consider.

The best chocolates will leave  a lingering on your tongue to enjoy as much as the actual consumption if allowed.  Rather than grabbing another piece without thought, wait and give time for the chocolate to reveal its true fruit.

A little can go a long way.  Fine Chocolate is not meant to  quaff hunger pains but to delight and experience an exquisite sensation.  Treat it like a fine bottle of Cognac or Armagnac, to be savored occasionally; better bought in small quantities, as it does not keep too long.

Although, you will find it often served at the end of meals in gourmet restaurants, I feel it is best appreciated in the late afternoon, when your palate is generally clear.   In tasting different chocolates, water is the beverage of choice, though a rich Banyuls red wine tastes wonderful with it.

Chocolate has many health benefits, if not overloaded with sugar!  For my  health and taste buds, I generally buy chocolate tablets with at least 75% cocoa butter, and love the ones with 98%!

It is a mild mood stimulant, that helps release endorphins.  The flavonoids and or flavonols are antioxidants, and can improve blood flow to brain and heart amongst helping decrease blood pressure.

Despite all these great things around eating good chocolate, my chocolate desires are motivated out of pleasure, pure and simple.

The chocolate sculptures and gorgeous chocolate dresses that they have each year, may dazzle my eyes, but I am more interested in tasting chocolates!

This year, I really enjoyed a chocolate conference and degustation put on Michel Cluizel.  This three generation old chocolate maker from Normandy specialises in offering chocolates from individual cacao plantations through the world.

Gout de terroir, or taste of the land, can be just as pronounced in chocolate as in wine.  Basically the type of soil will influence the taste of the cocoa bean.  Chocolates presented from Mexico, San Tomé, and exotic Papouasie New Guinea plantations, all had different nuances of flavour.  I thought this was most pronounced in the spiciness  of dark chocolate  grown on volcanic soil from the island of Sao Tomé off the eastern coast of Africa, near Gabon.

A new discovery was the wonderful chocolates of Marou from Vietnam, that were very complex and had intriguing earthy undertones with a lingering aftertaste.

After a time weaving around the crowds, I headed towards the pastry show, which I often have said is the best deal in the house. Next year I am going to study the list of chefs in advance and  buy several tickets, with the intent to plant myself in the front row.

Not only do you learn a tremendous amount of techniques from these extremely talented pastry chefs, but you get to taste each of their creations. Perhaps the only drawback would be too many calories from sugar, which I am very careful to avoid.

This year, my visit was on Sunday and the most surprising and creative chef hailed from Australia.  Adriano Zumbo produced what he called a Bush Cake, though certainly you would never find anything of the like in the bush!

Several layers of intensified chocolate creams flavoured with Australian herbs such as strawberry gum,(eucalyptus olida) and ground bush lime leaves that were not combava, covered a dark chocolate cake layer and then topped with a splendid tangy and contrasting cream infused with  Yuzu. Complex and very intriguing melange of flavours throughout.

David Molinari compiled sheets of crisp phyllo dough with a milk chocolate cream, simple enough, but I found it  too sweet for my palate.

Yari Berreby fashioned  sublime croquettes made out of chicken and foie gras, breaded and  fried, dusted with Madagascar chocolate shavings and served with confit red peppers. Delicious and unusual!

Over at the Barry Callebaut chocolate show the theme was on chocolate and vegetables.  Barry Callebaut is a Swiss chocolate manufacturer of superb chocolates used by professional chocolatiers and amateurs like myself, that can be found at my favorite food speciality store G. Detou on Rue Tiquetonne.

Again, extremely surprising marriages of chocolates with vegetables that you and I would never think of combining.  Handsome Miquel Guarro, from Spain, who I enjoyed looking at as much as his creation, ingenuously molded chocolate to resemble a tomato, garnished with tomato sorbet and tomato flavoured genoise cake.

French MOF( Meilleur Ouvrier de France), Philippe Bertrand, designed a half moon shortbread cookie base that was glazed with dark  chocolate and decorated with beet flavored genoise cake, fresh raspberries and red beet cornucopias along with milk chocolate tear drops.

When you see all of the work that goes into these professional pastry creations, you can understand the high prices that they command.  There is just a tremendous amount of very skilled labor and knowhow involved.

I am in my humble opinion a  good amateur pastry chef, but some of their techniques that makes the end result of their creations so polished, require materials and equipment that I do not have.  Some pastry chefs here, also venture out into chocolate making, and vice versa, such as the genius Jacques Genin, who has won acclaim for both.

Paris has several great chocolatiers to choose from, so it is practically impossible to designate one as the best.  One thing you can count on besides the quality, is the high prices, usually running over well over a 100 euros a kilo.

At those prices, they are to be treated as luxuries to be savoured either on special occasions or just one or two pieces a day, unless you have deep pockets.  I do not find that a problem, because great chocolate should be a special treat to look forward to rather than an everyday affair.

I don’t spend a lot at the salon, except to buy chocolates I find interesting, that I can not buy in Paris.  One of those,  was some tart truffles from Nelleulla, in Riga, Latvia who gave us very generous samples.   Dark and white chocolates made from the excellent wild berries found in their dense forests and the indigenous sea buckthorns were really lovely.

Knowing that my palate would be very satiated from chocolate, I decided to give in to my autumn craving for pumpkin, by making a pumpkin praline mascarpone cake before I left.   Made from the excellent fresh French pumpkin flesh, my own ground cookie crust and topped with my crunchy hazelnut and walnut praline, it was a velvety and heavenly tasting fall dessert.