I recently had a very pleasant conversation about chocolate with a French woman in between Super Bowl commercials (as in, during the game). A self-proclaimed foodie and chocoholic, her take on the whole European chocolate thing was exactly what you would expect. Europeans know, love and obsess over good chocolate. It goes without saying (though I'll say it anyway) that she was unpleasantly surprised to take a bite out of a well-known American mass-produced chocolate bar.
Which leads to the question...what exactly is in those chocolate bars after all? Let's just say, chocolate is the least of it. Milk chocolate only needs about 10% of chocolate (cacao) in it to qualify as chocolate (though nearly three years ago there was a huge push by large producers to cut that percentage way down by substituting with hydrogenated oils). With milk, sugar, artificial flavors, and something called PGPR (an emulsifier), the balance of chocolate and "other" was a bit skewed.
No wonder she was disappointed. Luckily, there is good chocolate to found in the good old USA! And even some manufacturers that haven't been bought out by the big-boys. Small artisan chocolate shops use quality chocolate, though many will import it from (you guessed it) Europe. But others will use American produced chocolate, and it will be excellent. Read the labels, ask the questions and most importantly, refine your taste buds.
As my French friend will attest to, it really does make a difference.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
