PUNTOITALY N°2 - July - December 2012

Raw ingredients 60 MADE OF… Chocolate: famous all over the world as something that we look for when we feel blue. In some ways it could be considered the leading man of the pastry world, because it’s good, it has sugar but is bitter and can be manipulated in so many different ways. We are talking about chocolate, a wonder- ful concentration of flavour and technology. Yes because there wouldn't be any chocolate without the genius of those who created new processes for cocoa seeds treatments com- bined with the inventiveness of pastry chefs. Delighted ex- pressions shown while tasting melting chocolate could make us think that its success is due to clever marketing but if we dig a bit deeper it is clear that the real reason is quite remote, it starts with the cocoa tree. CRU Most pastry chefs are in love with chocolate and many of them know nearly everything about their product. In particular they know the country of origin, Africa or South America, and terms like Forestero, Criollo or Trini- tario that indicate the type of cocoa bean that is used to produce that chocolate. Usually every chocolate pro- ducer is used to mix different types of cocoa beans to ob- tain a particular flavour or a more intensive taste. During the 80s, a monorigin chocolate prepared with a specific type of cocoa bean appeared on the market for the first time in France. Monorigin chocolate is usually called cru, that is a French term used to describe a wine produced with grapes originating from the same vineyard. When we taste two different monorigins the differences stand out immediately and it is much easier to recognize distinct aromas and flavours. Such differences are due to several reasons. As the product hits our taste buds we need to consider not only the type of cocoa used such as Fores- tero, Criollo or Trinitario but also the different processing methods employed. By Paolo Cappellini