Love at first bite!

What is the secret to chocolate’s charm? It turns out that it involves more than just the premium cocoa beans, writes Madhulika Dash

A broken ruby bar with caramelised almonds and pistachios. PHOTO COURTESY WIKIPEDIA

Chocolates are the symbol of neuro gastronomical food and are often associated with love and happiness. All it takes to fall in love with this discovery of the Aztecs is one bite. Even if people’s preferences for chocolate have evolved through time from milk to semi-sweet to dark to even the recently introduced ruby, the feeling that goes along with chocolate has never changed. One of the factors that have made chocolate the focus of study for scientists as well as pastry chefs and chocolate engineers (yes, there are such specialists) around the world is that it continues to reign supreme among neuro gastronomical foods and also has nutritional benefits.

Incidentally, the latter led early Mesoamericans, Aztecs, Mayans, and European nobility to continue consuming and patronising this miraculous concoction as it changed from a bitter, gritty dark drink to a rich, sweet, melt-in-your-mouth habit. During the two world wars, the power of chocolate to satiate and affect mood as well as its shelf life became the decisive factor to include the bar of deliciousness as part of the soldiers’ ration, first as cocoa powder and then as a bar. It still has that place today. In truth, most people serving in harsh environments frequently rely on chocolate to give them nutrition and the fleeting feeling of delight in a bite.

But why do we fall head over heels in love with chocolate right away? Is it due to the fabled tales that wax poetic about the legendary Mexican King Montezuma II, who is credited with introducing the world to its favourite fixation after consuming 50 golden goblets of the elixir, or the Cistercian monastery of Piedra in Aragon, where the first version of the chocolate we know today was made, or is nostalgia at play? It turns out that all of the above, together with something additional called the mouthfeel, define our passion for the once-liquid gold, much like the two queens, Marie-Thérèse, the wife of Louis XIV, and Marie-Antoinette, who established chocolate as a court beverage and gave it opulent status. Have you wondered how long it takes for a chocolate bar to break down in your mouth? In fact, it is THE element, according to academics worldwide, that affects not only the kind of chocolate you would like but also the variation that you wander towards depending on your mood. This debunks how human preferences vary over time and explains why, while liking dark chocolate, you may cheerfully settle for a semi-sweet ganache or ice cream as well as milk chocolate, which isn’t technically a type of chocolate. Ruby is a no-bake, citrus-flavoured variation of the original.

Typically, nostalgia plays a part in this, but compared to the mouthfeel, it has more of a Wooster-like aspect in that it essentially lets you choose to go from a well-known brand to a new one and whether you like the chocolate depends on your reaction to the first bite. These aspects play a part in determining which bar becomes your favourite by controlling everything from how the bar breaks to how it melts and how long the flavour and aroma linger in your mouth. A practice to which we frequently use the orgasmic utterances um and ah. But is chocolate actually working for you? Contrary to popular belief, a recent study reported in ACS Applied Material and Interfaces says otherwise. The study found that the film of fat that melts first when chocolate contacts the tongue had more to do with the enjoyment of chocolate than the actual chocolate itself.

The purpose of the film is to create the mouthfeel that you identify with a bar, whether it is five percent or fifty. Not only does it affect how the chocolate will melt, but it also affects the aroma and aftertaste. It functions a lot like a paratha that has been smeared with butter. Butter creates a flavour profile on the palate even before you can taste the spices, wheat, or filling inside. Consequently, everything you eat becomes delightful. One of the main reasons tempering is effective for the majority of our curries is because we taste fat first, which has unintentionally elevated the scent and flavour of the spices and the food.

Similar things happen when chocolate is made, where the bitter cocoa powder is combined with the first flavouring agent, cocoa butter, and then engineered with a variety of additional ingredients to give chocolate its signature colour, appearance, and aroma. This produces the chocolate bar that most people are familiar with. However, this is only the first step that produces the chemical. From this point on, chocolate undergoes a process of flavour improvement in which other substances are added to give it a contrasting flavour, followed by the fat film, the mystical cloak of all things delicious. This procedure, known as lubrication, determines not just the quality of the chocolate but also how it tastes.

This affects the quality and palate work of the chocolate, which is one of the numerous reasons why improperly tempered chocolate or those that capture air during this process are referred to as rejects. Does that imply that chocolate itself has little to no influence on its ascent to the top of the pyramid of sweets? It’s untrue. Many of the benefits of chocolate originate from the fermentation process as well as the way it is grown. Both of these elements influence the flavour and nutritional value of the chocolate as well as give it that extra umami punch that makes it impossible to limit ourselves to just one piece. Additionally, it aids in separating the cocoa from the butter, which is useful when making the ideal bar that will make you fall in love.

The buzz around chocolate

Premiumisation of chocolate: Chocolate has become more expensive because people’s preferences have changed from sweeter (milk chocolate) to less sweet/bitter (dark chocolate) with high cocoa concentrations. The 64% has increased to 84%, and more individuals are becoming receptive to a 95%. From packaged FMCG chocolates to pastry chefs’ usage of Application Chocolate, this trend is pervasive.

Single-origin & artisan chocolates: Similar to whiskeys, wines, and other beverages, chocolate has attained the status of “being relished/recognised by its different taste nuances, flavour notes, that are largely dominated by their cocoa origin (the soil, the weather of the plantation’s location), and all this is being marketed and advertised well enough for connoisseurs to appreciate and teach people to appreciate as well with an increase in the number of chocolate appreciation classes held.”

Homegrown: The practice of producing chocolate in small batches utilising customised procedures and techniques to create artisan chocolates has earned a lot of attention from chocolatiers in India, where cocoa farms are located. Chocolates that replace jaggery, palm sugar, or coconut sugar for sugar make Indian artisanal chocolate unique, sought-after, and expensive.

Chocolate being teamed with spices and seeds: In addition to its antioxidant characteristics, chocolate is now paired with other spices and seeds, departing from its traditional pairing with nuts and fruits. Seeds give the chocolate a health label.

Multisensorial and multi-textural: As patisserie across the globe moves towards creations that are multi-layered with various textures and flavours, chocolate has played a significant role in generating various textures (due to its special setting properties) and flavours (due to the different origins) to the multisensorial and multi-textural trend that patisserie is currently experiencing.

Ruby chocolate (the 4th kind of chocolate): The fourth variety of chocolate, called ruby chocolate, is the most traditional style of chocolate at the moment. The ruby chocolate is a little acidic and has berry undertones.