In defense of milk chocolate
The recent trend about dark, high percent cocoa chocolate being the "gourmet" chocolate -the good stuff- and considering milk chocolate as an inferior form, almost as low in culinary scales as ketchup, is nonsense.
A friend that claims to be a chocolate lover was disappointed about me, another chocolate lover, preferring milk chocolate over the bitter, 80 percent cocoa, she was eating. Well I’m sorry.
Around the world, who would you say associates Mexico with great chocolate? Nobody? Exactly. No one sees Mexico as a country producing great chocolate, even though the consumption of cocoa in this planet started in Mexico when the Olmecs not only realized that they could eat it and derive great pleasure from its consumption but learned also how to cultivate it. That was at least 2,400 years ago.
The Aztecs (around 400 AD), even used cocoa beans as currency. That’s how prevalent and abundant (and important) cocoa was for the Mesoamerican cultures.
So we have centuries of chocolate production and consumption in Mexico. Cocoa and chocolate are used in many recipes. More than a few moles include chocolate. And when you prepare mole from scratch in Mexico, you start by making chocolate from scratch. Yes, you have to make chocolate from scratch and you can. The tradition and know-how is there. Not like a friend here in San Diego that told me she knew how to make mole poblano from scratch using peanut butter and Nestlé’s Quick. God bless her soul….
So, why is it that no one associates Mexico with good chocolate? Because we - I’m Mexican- don’t make any.
Which country do we associate with the best chocolate? (and army knifes and watches)….Switzerland. What did the Swiss have in the 1800s when cocoa finally became available and popular there that Mexico didn’t have? Cows. MILK. And the Swiss started producing milk chocolate, and we all loved it and have loved it for two centuries. Good chocolate is milk chocolate and vice versa.
- "…But dark chocolate brings more health benefits…"
Yes. So does broccoli.
The leading flower producer and exporter of flowers in the world is the netherlands, what? not colombia, not mexico with their good weather, biological diversity, enough land to grow anything?. The netherlands; i mean they don’t even have enough land, they have had to take it from the sea! Well they have to top of the art technology is flower production. They even have genetically improved bees to increase their production. They export those bees to other countries in the same way they export a milk cow.
So yes, Latinamerica is the land of origin of many nature miracles, like cocoa, but we are really bad in taking advantage of that. In Tabasco and Chiapas take the cocoa and, with water, they make a beberage called “pozol”, is delicious, we don´t need milk to enjoy the cocoa.
Belgium is today the top of mind country when it comes to gourmet chocolate, dark chocolate. I don’t know about fashion, gourmet or healthy food trens, I just know that I am a junky of dark chocolate, with all my respect to mikyway-sneakers eaters.
Regars
Comment by Pablo — October 21, 2009 @ 3:04 pm
I really don´t mind if you like milk chocolate or dark chocolate my friend but are you saying that the Swiss enhanced the chocoexperience and, by doing so, more or less killed the traditional way of enjoying it? And that whoever now enjoys it the traditional way is wrong?
Or are you just upset because they consider their way more “purist” than yours? (in a certain way they are right) Just follow my son´s Max advice: “not to worry… take it easy” and enjoy whatever form of chocolate life throws at you.
Comment by Polash — November 6, 2009 @ 1:54 am
Just to add to my argument: there are also dark chocolate versions of Sneakers and Milky Way. So what’s crap is crap. Regardless of milk or dark. And two things about Belgium: they are large milk producers and their milk chocolate is as famous as their dark chocolate.
Comment by kikegavilan — November 11, 2009 @ 5:26 am