Here at Local Food HQ, we’re happily indulging ourselves in Chocolate Week (12 – 18 October 2015) – after all, it’s just the excuse we need to break into a bar or two (hands up, it’s three really!). And we’re in good company, with nine out of 10 of us in the UK being regular chocolate-eaters ... and around one third tucking in at least four times a week.
Chocolate is intrinsic to the British diet and we have the explorer Christopher Columbus to thank for bringing the raw ingredient cacao back to Europe from his fourth visit to the ‘New World’ in the early 16th century. By the middle of the following century, the custom of enjoying chocolate as a drink had reached England – however, this new delight was expensive and available only to the regal and the wealthy. But you can’t keep a good thing to yourself for long, and the increasing demand spurned new cacao plantations, eventually melting the previously double decker price. This shift was further helped by significant reductions in import duties as well as an easing of the challenges of transport due to the Industrial Revolution.
Food of the gods
Since the days of the 8th century (or before – no-one is sure) when the Mayas inscribed images of the cocoa god on cups and bowls and consumed the crushed beans in everything from porridge to beverages, cacao was revered for its supposed medicinal qualities. It’s no surprise then, as we fast-forward to the 19th century, to see apothecaries starting to blend cacao with other ingredients (such as sugar and cocoa butter) to create a solid product tenuously along the lines of the chocolate bars we enjoy today (although the French had been enjoying rudimentary 'pastilles' of chocolate prior to that).
Indeed, the founders of both Terry’s of York and Fry’s of Bristol had pharmaceutical backgrounds, and it was Joseph Fry who invented the first-known chocolate bar in 1847. The landmark of Mr Fry’s discovery was that his recipe allowed the chocolate to be moulded into breakable chunks – a major advance, and one which we continue to love today; that includes all of us who yearn for a melting moment while standing on the tube, walking the dog, or kicking up our heels in the bath.
So we thank you Mr Fry (and here we pay traditional tribute by opening another bar) for helping mould the UK chocolate market, which is now worth in the region of £5bn a year. And while the big players are, as one would expect, responsible for the lion’s share, here at Local Food HQ we salute the UK’s amazing artisan chocolatiers who pour such passion into their products, creating truly luxurious works of cacao art.
Take airline pilot turned chocolate expert Hanna Wicks of Dorking, who has established herself as a skilled producer of the most divine squares and thins, using sustainable cocoa beans, pure cocoa butter and natural vanilla flavourings (plus other enticing extras). It sounds not a million miles away from what our old friend Joseph Fry was developing nearly 200 years ago, but of course Hanna’s chocolates are two centuries advanced from Mr Fry’s somewhat rudimentary and bitter early prototypes.
Thanks to the heritage of the Mayas, we know cacao has long been valued for its medicinal properties, with potential benefits said to include lowering cholesterol, preventing cognitive decline and reducing the risk of cardiovascular problems.
The Raw Chocolate Company has a really good angle on this, taking the unprocessed food approach. At their Sussex base the team, led by the inspirational Linus Gorpe (who recently made a successful pitch to BBC Two’s Dragons’ Den), believes it’s important that their chocolate tastes good as well as doing good; they are achieving that by using minimal additional ingredients so that the natural cacao can sing out. And when it comes to the feel-good factor of chocolate, it’s good to know that The Raw Chocolate Company sources cacao which is certified fair trade and organic, which in turn ensures a decent price is delivered to the cacao farmers of Peru.
We’ll break open another bar to celebrate that.
Of course.
Tags: chocolate
Chocolate Week
