It exists and is produced, I am told by a reliable source in Guangdong, China, in Hainan Island. It was not clearly described to me, so I cant really enlighten myself and the reader any further. The same company I am told also produces another confection, chocolate coated sunflower seeds. And the chocolate comes from plantations in Hainan. Which again was a surprise, because I had no idea that there were cocoa plantations in China.
Hainan is off Guangdong, is southern China. The Hainan province is really over 200 islands in the South China Sea. The largest, some 34,000 sq kilometers(about the size of Belgium) is the one that produces a whole range of tropical crops:rubber, coconut, coffee, pepper, cashews, pineapple, bananas, vanilla, longans, lichees, jack fruit, caramblas, lemon grass, lots and lots of rice and of course cocoa. About 20 to 30 tons a year, I am told.
The soil is volcanic, well watered by four long rivers and rainfall is around 1500 to 2000mm a year.The center of the island is mountainous. The highest Mount Wuzhi rises nearly 2000 meters. Temperatures and humidity in Hainan is a little low for truly luscious chocolate, I suspect. But no doubt the soil will make it interesting. I am trying to find out more.But it is good to know there are still surprises waiting to be discovered.
Incidentally I am told that the world famous Hainan Chicken Rice is unknown in the island.I am devasted!
Sunday 30 November 2008
Wednesday 26 November 2008
THE NEW COCOA BEAN! FROM AUSTRALIA?
The great thing about chocolate is the adventure you can taste. As it melts in your mouth the mysteries of Madagascar, Java, Ivory Coast, Ecuador, Venezuela fill the recesses of your mind. What pictures you see, what sensations you experience and what thrills stimulate you. It is not the taste of chocolate that makes us addicted to it, it is the journey it takes on. During the personal chocolate experience we get high with a touch of the Indiana Jones or Laura Croft fever.
It will be exciting indeed one day if we can venture through a chocolate vision into the monsoon jungles of Cape York, Australia or hack our way through the northern edges of Australia"s Northern Territory.Australia is a perfect place for a new cocoa bean to emerge from. In fact not far from Port Douglas, near Mossman, are the first ever cocoa plantations of Australia. These plantations are on the edge of the Daintree Rainforests.
Daintree Rainforests should not be spoken in the same breath as other rainforests. Daintree is the oldest in the world. It celebrated its 135 millionth birthday recently. It was forged out of volcanic explosions, fires, cyclones, climatic changes and everything Nature could think of.
Daintree is about 1200 square miles. Size of 5 Singapores. Cape York is just a little smaller than Sulawesi(the largest cocoa region in Indonesia with about 400,000 small farms). At one time historians say, there was probably a land-bridge between Sulawesi and Australia.Which probably explains why Sulawesi and Maluku(lots of good beans here too) share some the flora and fauna with Australia. The Wallace Line runs through Maluku.
This is a perfect place for a new breed of bean to emerge from.The country has from Cape York in the north-eastern edge. westwards along the tip of the continent's northern coast the hot and humid conditions that cocoa trees thrive on.Tropical cyclones and monsoons bring rain to this region. The soil is ancient and mystical--ask any of the Aboriginal people that live there. The area bristles with excitement.
Daintree is home of the viscous Cassowaries and the tree kangaroo. There are also many patiently waiting crocodiles. It was close here that Captain Cook"s Endeavour struck a coral reef. So he called the place Cape Tribulation.
Cape York, is on the same latitude as Madagascar where some intriguing beans come from. It is also within the belt of the primary cocoa growing regions of the world.
Cape York is a World Heritage site. So is the great Barrier Reef across the road, as it were. Coco plantations can help create forests and propagate them. It can grow with harmony with the fruits already being cultivated in the area. It will not encroach into ecological balance of that environment.
Down south are the incredible resources that Australia has that perhaps no other cocoa rich country possess. First its severely applied laws make it very unlikely that flora or fauna diseases can sneak into the country. Second the country has extremely innovative scientific and intellectual resources to support the science of cocoa breeding. Thirdly it has the food technologists and world class culinary stars that can surely take chocolate to great new heights, especially when they are inspired by their own beans. Already Australian chocolate artisans like Cocoa Farm are inventing some delightfully new cocoa experiences.
Fourth, Australia will have no problems with issues like Fair Trade or Child Labour.You can buy beans here without feeling any guilt. Lastly, and I think it is important, Kevin Rudd is Prime Minister. The man undoubtedly has courage, vision, the intellect and is innovative.A man with a face, where a chocolate smear will not be out of place. It is bound to trickle down, or up, to chocolate and cocoa. I am sure he will be around through many, many yields of cocoa pods.
Perhaps what Australia lacks currently is the expertise to process the bean to chocolate ingredients. We have that long experience and expertise, which are indeed excellent, in Indonesia.What are neighbours for?
Frankly there's only one thing about Australia that bothers me. In spite of their atrocious accent they are actually a very civilised people. The problem is that they may civilise the cocoa bean. One must not forget the beans comes the depths of jungles. The bean part of the Olmec, Aztec and Mayan civilisations. The bean was Cortes' passion(when it was money). The bean it is said was at the root of Casanovas and Don Juan's wicked philandering, the bean was nearly the victim of the Inquisition.
It is a history of blood, sweat and tears. It's roots are savage, sensuous, dark and brooding. It needs to be sought after and conquered.
The Australians may civilise the bean. Have landscaped plantations, with little plagues with neat descriptions, a quaint little factory at the end and a cafe where you can sample and buy chocolates made from the cocoa grown on plantation, enjoy buttered scones and great wine even. It would be wrong! It would rob the mystic and of the bean mysterious depths and subsequently the flavour and the luscious romance of the chocolate.
One way out would be to totally handover the cocoa project in Cape Youk to the Kuku Yalariji Aboriginal tribal. They have lived in the these rainforests for over 10,000 years. They lived with what the forests provided. I am sure they would be delighted to give the forests a return gift of chocolate without disturbing the spirits that dwell therein.
If cocoa beans take their characteristics from the soil, climate and environment what would Cape York(Or Daintree beans) taste like? It makes the hair at the back of my neck to bristle. For it must be awesome.
It will be exciting indeed one day if we can venture through a chocolate vision into the monsoon jungles of Cape York, Australia or hack our way through the northern edges of Australia"s Northern Territory.Australia is a perfect place for a new cocoa bean to emerge from. In fact not far from Port Douglas, near Mossman, are the first ever cocoa plantations of Australia. These plantations are on the edge of the Daintree Rainforests.
Daintree Rainforests should not be spoken in the same breath as other rainforests. Daintree is the oldest in the world. It celebrated its 135 millionth birthday recently. It was forged out of volcanic explosions, fires, cyclones, climatic changes and everything Nature could think of.
Daintree is about 1200 square miles. Size of 5 Singapores. Cape York is just a little smaller than Sulawesi(the largest cocoa region in Indonesia with about 400,000 small farms). At one time historians say, there was probably a land-bridge between Sulawesi and Australia.Which probably explains why Sulawesi and Maluku(lots of good beans here too) share some the flora and fauna with Australia. The Wallace Line runs through Maluku.
This is a perfect place for a new breed of bean to emerge from.The country has from Cape York in the north-eastern edge. westwards along the tip of the continent's northern coast the hot and humid conditions that cocoa trees thrive on.Tropical cyclones and monsoons bring rain to this region. The soil is ancient and mystical--ask any of the Aboriginal people that live there. The area bristles with excitement.
Daintree is home of the viscous Cassowaries and the tree kangaroo. There are also many patiently waiting crocodiles. It was close here that Captain Cook"s Endeavour struck a coral reef. So he called the place Cape Tribulation.
Cape York, is on the same latitude as Madagascar where some intriguing beans come from. It is also within the belt of the primary cocoa growing regions of the world.
Cape York is a World Heritage site. So is the great Barrier Reef across the road, as it were. Coco plantations can help create forests and propagate them. It can grow with harmony with the fruits already being cultivated in the area. It will not encroach into ecological balance of that environment.
Down south are the incredible resources that Australia has that perhaps no other cocoa rich country possess. First its severely applied laws make it very unlikely that flora or fauna diseases can sneak into the country. Second the country has extremely innovative scientific and intellectual resources to support the science of cocoa breeding. Thirdly it has the food technologists and world class culinary stars that can surely take chocolate to great new heights, especially when they are inspired by their own beans. Already Australian chocolate artisans like Cocoa Farm are inventing some delightfully new cocoa experiences.
Fourth, Australia will have no problems with issues like Fair Trade or Child Labour.You can buy beans here without feeling any guilt. Lastly, and I think it is important, Kevin Rudd is Prime Minister. The man undoubtedly has courage, vision, the intellect and is innovative.A man with a face, where a chocolate smear will not be out of place. It is bound to trickle down, or up, to chocolate and cocoa. I am sure he will be around through many, many yields of cocoa pods.
Perhaps what Australia lacks currently is the expertise to process the bean to chocolate ingredients. We have that long experience and expertise, which are indeed excellent, in Indonesia.What are neighbours for?
Frankly there's only one thing about Australia that bothers me. In spite of their atrocious accent they are actually a very civilised people. The problem is that they may civilise the cocoa bean. One must not forget the beans comes the depths of jungles. The bean part of the Olmec, Aztec and Mayan civilisations. The bean was Cortes' passion(when it was money). The bean it is said was at the root of Casanovas and Don Juan's wicked philandering, the bean was nearly the victim of the Inquisition.
It is a history of blood, sweat and tears. It's roots are savage, sensuous, dark and brooding. It needs to be sought after and conquered.
The Australians may civilise the bean. Have landscaped plantations, with little plagues with neat descriptions, a quaint little factory at the end and a cafe where you can sample and buy chocolates made from the cocoa grown on plantation, enjoy buttered scones and great wine even. It would be wrong! It would rob the mystic and of the bean mysterious depths and subsequently the flavour and the luscious romance of the chocolate.
One way out would be to totally handover the cocoa project in Cape Youk to the Kuku Yalariji Aboriginal tribal. They have lived in the these rainforests for over 10,000 years. They lived with what the forests provided. I am sure they would be delighted to give the forests a return gift of chocolate without disturbing the spirits that dwell therein.
If cocoa beans take their characteristics from the soil, climate and environment what would Cape York(Or Daintree beans) taste like? It makes the hair at the back of my neck to bristle. For it must be awesome.
Sunday 23 November 2008
THE MYTH OF BELGIAN CHOCOLATES.
In some of our slick and expensive shopping malls Belgian chocolate boutiques are popping up.At this time of economic woes. At this time when imports are beginning to be very expensive as our currency seems rather smitten.At one outlet, at a very new mall, strangely called Creole, 50gm can set you back $5."Why?" you gasp, and the Sales person replies , "Because it is Belgian Chocolate." Now that really got my bristles up.
Of course I ate the three pralines I bought and it tasted just pretty expensive.Just that. New Tree is the only Belgium chocolate( now located in the US) I would cross the road for. The rest are boring. They are riding a reputation that was perhaps at it height in the 1960s. Since then there magnificent chocolatiers from the United States, Italy, one in the French Alps, Spain and one or two boastful ones from Venezuela. Surprising Australia's Cocoa Tree is coming up fast with some great chocolate. And here in Indonesia I know at least three housewives that make superb chocolate. I make some pretty good stuff too and at least they are good value for money.
The fact that Belgian chocolates are the best, is a myth. They are OK. But too expensive like all things in Belgium, including taxi fares, three star hotels(One shudders to think what the five starred charge), lunch, dinner, European Union and NATO headquarters.
Chocolates are all made through a particular process. It needs a careful selection of beans. It needs loving care and passion thoughout the process. Indeed it does not help one bit if you happen to be a Belgian. It helps if you are Spanish which means you invented the Tango and can probably dance the Fandango. That's the kind of vitality you need to make great chocolate. Have you ever seen a Belgian with vitality?Or one that can dance? Or for that matter a Belgian chocolate with a dash of verve? Remember this is the country where the Manneken-Pis is the national treasure.
Here in Indonesia we have the greatest collect on of cocoa beans in the world. There are at least 400,000 small holding cocoa plantations. Spread over 17,000 islands that revel in conditions that cocoa beans thrive on. The finest coffee also comes from these islands. And all the world's known spices. Plus our history in cocoa goes back at least 300 years. Here are also some of the best cocoa processors and manufacturers in the world.
But the Belgian Chocolate myth is so strong that we still have among us incredibly naive people who suscrible to belief in this myth. Break away today and take that Delicious adventurous journey to the real world of chocolate.
Of course I ate the three pralines I bought and it tasted just pretty expensive.Just that. New Tree is the only Belgium chocolate( now located in the US) I would cross the road for. The rest are boring. They are riding a reputation that was perhaps at it height in the 1960s. Since then there magnificent chocolatiers from the United States, Italy, one in the French Alps, Spain and one or two boastful ones from Venezuela. Surprising Australia's Cocoa Tree is coming up fast with some great chocolate. And here in Indonesia I know at least three housewives that make superb chocolate. I make some pretty good stuff too and at least they are good value for money.
The fact that Belgian chocolates are the best, is a myth. They are OK. But too expensive like all things in Belgium, including taxi fares, three star hotels(One shudders to think what the five starred charge), lunch, dinner, European Union and NATO headquarters.
Chocolates are all made through a particular process. It needs a careful selection of beans. It needs loving care and passion thoughout the process. Indeed it does not help one bit if you happen to be a Belgian. It helps if you are Spanish which means you invented the Tango and can probably dance the Fandango. That's the kind of vitality you need to make great chocolate. Have you ever seen a Belgian with vitality?Or one that can dance? Or for that matter a Belgian chocolate with a dash of verve? Remember this is the country where the Manneken-Pis is the national treasure.
Here in Indonesia we have the greatest collect on of cocoa beans in the world. There are at least 400,000 small holding cocoa plantations. Spread over 17,000 islands that revel in conditions that cocoa beans thrive on. The finest coffee also comes from these islands. And all the world's known spices. Plus our history in cocoa goes back at least 300 years. Here are also some of the best cocoa processors and manufacturers in the world.
But the Belgian Chocolate myth is so strong that we still have among us incredibly naive people who suscrible to belief in this myth. Break away today and take that Delicious adventurous journey to the real world of chocolate.
Sunday 16 November 2008
TIME TO TAKE A RIGHT ABOUT TURN WITH CHOCOLATE?
(from which chocolate is derived from)Since 3000 years, chocolate has come an incredible long way. Imagine an Olmec, holding a cocoa pod, scratching his head and saying to his wife, "Can we eat this?" As it turns out his wife, like most wives, was right when she answered, "Honey what you have there, in 3000 years, is destined to be better than sex." It was likely that the wife was subsequently sacrificed to a ferocious Deity. The grieving husband got drunk from the alcohol made from the white mucus that covered the beans inside the pod and was buried with the remains of the drink.
The Aztecs learned to crack the bean, extract the nibs, crush them to paste and make a bitter drink which they believed kept them in excellent vigor.In time the learned to mix it with maize gruel and honey. Montezuma, the great Emperor of the Aztecs, drank it dyed red.And beaten to a froth. In fact, whatever the experts may say, the word "choicolat" means "beaten drink."
Later they experimented with extracts of vanilla, chili and annatto.
The Dominican Friars introduced it to Spain.The ancestors of El Bulli and Chocovic then took over and Chocolate began the first step towards an incredibly wonderful future.
But the chocolate of today bears little resemblance to its origins. It is being sissified so that we, who don't quite measure up in spunk to the Aztecs, Mayans an Olmecs can find it palatable. And pleasureable. Are we missing out in the real pleasure of chocolate?
French pastries are concoctions with chocolate. They do not offer the unique pleasure that chocolate is meant to offer. They use chocolate for sensational gimmickry.The mass manufactured chocolates,rich with alpine milks and cane sugar, laden with nuts, are say what you may are not the stuff that braced up the Aztecs. In some of the mass produced chocolate, you can still taste a trace of palm oil. These manufacturers, would have promptly beheaded by Montezuma. Justly so.
The chocolate revolution led by the Artisans, Amano, De Vries, Tim Childs, Bonnat, Cocoa Farm of Australia(though this one is a bit too civilised) to name a few, that restored some of the mystic and adventure of chocolate. They have brought back the passion and romance and their chocolate can justly be gifts of love on Valentine's Day. Then there are others who have come up with a "new idea" chocolate revolution.
The chocolate experience I took immense pleasure from was a moist,rich velvety, utterly sinful "cake" from "awfully chocolate".It's really not a cake, but a gloriously round of superb chocolate.There a bit of fudginess in it somewhere. This one you dream about.It is not a return to the origins but it has reinvented the chocolate experience.
The company "awfully chocolate" is, I am told was founded by Singapore lawyers. Which explains the exactitude of the definition of chocolate, in 2008, or what it legally should be. The "awfully chocolate" shop in Jakarta, is almost sterile.It's bare. There is no display nor evidence of chocolate at all. You walk up to the counter and ask for the chocolate. There is one ONE kind. Customers keep coming back!I must say, lawyers are far smarter than we usually credit them for.
It is the right time to go back a 1000 years or so and look at recipes that seemed to have worked well with chocolate,and ingredients like honey, vanilla, cinnamon. annatto and chili. And giving it a good beating in-between.Bring back the boldness and the savage romance!
The Aztecs learned to crack the bean, extract the nibs, crush them to paste and make a bitter drink which they believed kept them in excellent vigor.In time the learned to mix it with maize gruel and honey. Montezuma, the great Emperor of the Aztecs, drank it dyed red.And beaten to a froth. In fact, whatever the experts may say, the word "choicolat" means "beaten drink."
Later they experimented with extracts of vanilla, chili and annatto.
The Dominican Friars introduced it to Spain.The ancestors of El Bulli and Chocovic then took over and Chocolate began the first step towards an incredibly wonderful future.
But the chocolate of today bears little resemblance to its origins. It is being sissified so that we, who don't quite measure up in spunk to the Aztecs, Mayans an Olmecs can find it palatable. And pleasureable. Are we missing out in the real pleasure of chocolate?
French pastries are concoctions with chocolate. They do not offer the unique pleasure that chocolate is meant to offer. They use chocolate for sensational gimmickry.The mass manufactured chocolates,rich with alpine milks and cane sugar, laden with nuts, are say what you may are not the stuff that braced up the Aztecs. In some of the mass produced chocolate, you can still taste a trace of palm oil. These manufacturers, would have promptly beheaded by Montezuma. Justly so.
The chocolate revolution led by the Artisans, Amano, De Vries, Tim Childs, Bonnat, Cocoa Farm of Australia(though this one is a bit too civilised) to name a few, that restored some of the mystic and adventure of chocolate. They have brought back the passion and romance and their chocolate can justly be gifts of love on Valentine's Day. Then there are others who have come up with a "new idea" chocolate revolution.
The chocolate experience I took immense pleasure from was a moist,rich velvety, utterly sinful "cake" from "awfully chocolate".It's really not a cake, but a gloriously round of superb chocolate.There a bit of fudginess in it somewhere. This one you dream about.It is not a return to the origins but it has reinvented the chocolate experience.
The company "awfully chocolate" is, I am told was founded by Singapore lawyers. Which explains the exactitude of the definition of chocolate, in 2008, or what it legally should be. The "awfully chocolate" shop in Jakarta, is almost sterile.It's bare. There is no display nor evidence of chocolate at all. You walk up to the counter and ask for the chocolate. There is one ONE kind. Customers keep coming back!I must say, lawyers are far smarter than we usually credit them for.
It is the right time to go back a 1000 years or so and look at recipes that seemed to have worked well with chocolate,and ingredients like honey, vanilla, cinnamon. annatto and chili. And giving it a good beating in-between.Bring back the boldness and the savage romance!
Friday 14 November 2008
BEING ENTERPRISING WITH CHOCOLATE.
Our neighbourhood consisting of 274 homes and approximately 1196 persons answered a questionnaire recently on their chocolate habits, Mind you this is a mere middle-class neighboured in Tangerang, Indonesia. A place most of my blog readers have never heard of.
These are our findings: 60% of all homes buy at least 100gm of chocolate(bars or wafers) a month.They spend approximately a $1 for this purchase.20% 200-400gm(Spending up to $3 a month). The rest, 20% purchase up to 800gm ($8) a month.We found that total expenditure of chocolate from this neighbourhood per month was a staggering $657 a month, devouring 65kg a month.To put it in perspective, $657 is at today exchange rates is the monthly income of the upper-income group. It amounts to about 19 doctors visits and nearly a year of fees for a slightly above average private school.
Our little community's annual per capita consumption is 650gms.Interestingly close to the national per capita of chocolate consumption. Obviously lot of room for expansion!
On the other hand the 28 home-industries in this area purchase between 30kg to 120kg per month for making chocolate, chocolate confectionery, cakes, browning, donut and other dipping. But take into consideration that this is a particularly industrious area. Our average monthly turnover on chocolate is $8000. Highest monthly sales have hit $14,000.
Our chocolate are sold to to retail outlets like convenience stores, bakeries,bazaars, theatres, corporate sales, schools and one-to-one customers and packs to events like birthday parties. Our products include chocolate snacks, drinking chocolate,tarts, chocolate crispies, fruit covered chocolate and chocolate wafers and biscuits.
We don't produce bars, round or square pralines or anything you can get in the local supermarkets or mini-marts. Our chocolate snacks are little irregular rocks, some bursting with whole nuts, raisins, candied fruits bits and caramel,twisted shapes, triangles, crumbs and whatever irregular shape we can make. We flavour with cardamon, chili, cinnamon and other spices, wherever inspiration takes us.The group tries to come up with a surprise each production run.
Our community works with pots and pans and usual household equipment.Loose cooperative movement has evolved into an efficient "production line", home kitchens, linked together.
Chocolate from this community kitchens cost approximately $1 to $5 per hundred grams.
Occasional specialities are sold for close to $7 per hundred grams. Under trial are "health Chocolate" with beet or carrot sugar.
The community group now plans to hold a Chocolate, Food Fare at the local school hall with special invitations to retailers, corporations, mini marts and supermarkets with a view to contract sales.
We would rate ourselves are being moderately successful. The community itself has a very buoyant entrepreneurial stirrings. Other business from households include, baking, catering,packed-lunches, hair salons, school-bus(my wife), health foods, vegetable and fruit juices made to requested recipes as well as little known and well know healthy recipes,two boutiques,purified water, cooking gas agency, tuition in English and Mathematics, phone-cards and a photo-copy centre. The security guards in the area also run a very efficient real-estate business.
Perhaps there is a good chance we will ride out the global financial crisis without much help from the IMF.
These are our findings: 60% of all homes buy at least 100gm of chocolate(bars or wafers) a month.They spend approximately a $1 for this purchase.20% 200-400gm(Spending up to $3 a month). The rest, 20% purchase up to 800gm ($8) a month.We found that total expenditure of chocolate from this neighbourhood per month was a staggering $657 a month, devouring 65kg a month.To put it in perspective, $657 is at today exchange rates is the monthly income of the upper-income group. It amounts to about 19 doctors visits and nearly a year of fees for a slightly above average private school.
Our little community's annual per capita consumption is 650gms.Interestingly close to the national per capita of chocolate consumption. Obviously lot of room for expansion!
On the other hand the 28 home-industries in this area purchase between 30kg to 120kg per month for making chocolate, chocolate confectionery, cakes, browning, donut and other dipping. But take into consideration that this is a particularly industrious area. Our average monthly turnover on chocolate is $8000. Highest monthly sales have hit $14,000.
Our chocolate are sold to to retail outlets like convenience stores, bakeries,bazaars, theatres, corporate sales, schools and one-to-one customers and packs to events like birthday parties. Our products include chocolate snacks, drinking chocolate,tarts, chocolate crispies, fruit covered chocolate and chocolate wafers and biscuits.
We don't produce bars, round or square pralines or anything you can get in the local supermarkets or mini-marts. Our chocolate snacks are little irregular rocks, some bursting with whole nuts, raisins, candied fruits bits and caramel,twisted shapes, triangles, crumbs and whatever irregular shape we can make. We flavour with cardamon, chili, cinnamon and other spices, wherever inspiration takes us.The group tries to come up with a surprise each production run.
Our community works with pots and pans and usual household equipment.Loose cooperative movement has evolved into an efficient "production line", home kitchens, linked together.
Chocolate from this community kitchens cost approximately $1 to $5 per hundred grams.
Occasional specialities are sold for close to $7 per hundred grams. Under trial are "health Chocolate" with beet or carrot sugar.
The community group now plans to hold a Chocolate, Food Fare at the local school hall with special invitations to retailers, corporations, mini marts and supermarkets with a view to contract sales.
We would rate ourselves are being moderately successful. The community itself has a very buoyant entrepreneurial stirrings. Other business from households include, baking, catering,packed-lunches, hair salons, school-bus(my wife), health foods, vegetable and fruit juices made to requested recipes as well as little known and well know healthy recipes,two boutiques,purified water, cooking gas agency, tuition in English and Mathematics, phone-cards and a photo-copy centre. The security guards in the area also run a very efficient real-estate business.
Perhaps there is a good chance we will ride out the global financial crisis without much help from the IMF.
Saturday 8 November 2008
JEMBRANA CHOCOLATE?
Art Pollard of AMANO Chocolate announced the launch of Jembrana Chocolate recently. Naturally it got us very excited. Jembrana is in Bali, Indonesia. The district is at the very tip of Bali and at the narrowest point only 60 meters from the tip of Java island.
AMANO announced that their 70% chocolate was made from cocoa beans from Jembrana, It has a fine rich flavour, with fruit notes and with nutty overtones.It has left us puzzled. Jembrana is indeed very fertile. Soil is volcanic. Cloves are grown but the main crop is coconut, Plantations of coconut blend into the jungles and rises over 1000 meters into the highlands.
In the lowlands are rice fields.Rice harvests are celebrated enthusiastically with buffalo races.
Overland travellers from Java Cities take a ferry from the southern tip of Jave and travel through this district to Denpasar, capital of Bali. The problem is we could find no cocoa plantations.Balinese in the area were doubtful of cocoa plantations in that area. If they did exist, they would have merely produced unfermented beans.
In all likelihood the beans secured by AMANO probably came from across the straits from the Java, where indeed there are large cocoa plantations which process high quality beans. These beans are Java and as chocolatiers know, regarded very highly, in the chocolate world.
There is geographical evidence that these areas were connected. The soils tend to be similar. Crops of cloves, rice, rubber and quality coffee besides cocoa is grown on the Java side.Java cocoa besides being fruity has a leathery hints Bonnat of France has produced bars made of Java.
AMANO announced that their 70% chocolate was made from cocoa beans from Jembrana, It has a fine rich flavour, with fruit notes and with nutty overtones.It has left us puzzled. Jembrana is indeed very fertile. Soil is volcanic. Cloves are grown but the main crop is coconut, Plantations of coconut blend into the jungles and rises over 1000 meters into the highlands.
In the lowlands are rice fields.Rice harvests are celebrated enthusiastically with buffalo races.
Overland travellers from Java Cities take a ferry from the southern tip of Jave and travel through this district to Denpasar, capital of Bali. The problem is we could find no cocoa plantations.Balinese in the area were doubtful of cocoa plantations in that area. If they did exist, they would have merely produced unfermented beans.
In all likelihood the beans secured by AMANO probably came from across the straits from the Java, where indeed there are large cocoa plantations which process high quality beans. These beans are Java and as chocolatiers know, regarded very highly, in the chocolate world.
There is geographical evidence that these areas were connected. The soils tend to be similar. Crops of cloves, rice, rubber and quality coffee besides cocoa is grown on the Java side.Java cocoa besides being fruity has a leathery hints Bonnat of France has produced bars made of Java.
Thursday 6 November 2008
HAS YOUR CHOCOLATE GOT PERSONALITY?
The trouble is that people, yes even top chefs, make chocolate because they like making chocolate. Well that's great. But it is better if they make chocolate with a personality suited for the occasion.
A night time, watching TV, snack is best with a chocolate thin, dark and sexy. It stays on your tongue, melting gently, soothingly, preparing you for good dreams. A chocolate to read with is a totally different person. It also depends on the book you are reading. If the book promises no great excitement, you might as well get from your chocolate--a chunky, nutty, milk chocolate that kind of gets you hooked.
If you are reading King or Clancy, I recommend something exciting to keep in pace with the excitement each page unravels.
You might try Chocolate Chilli Excites. It easy and quick to make and you can soon settle down with your book.What you need:
150gm salted butter
200 gm dark chocolate
150 gm sugar
5 eggs
A tablespoon of flour
Pinch of salt
Half a teaspoon of chilli flakes. Some may suggest ground chilli. But I feel that chilli flakes give you just the right thrill to go with King's latest best-seller.
1)First melt the butter and chocolate together carefully in a saucepan.
2)Pour into a mixing bowl and blend in the sugar.
3)Add the eggs one-by-one stirring it in well. It is mysterious but it turns out better when you add the eggs one-by-one than all in one go.
4)Add the flour and mix it in.
5)Add the chilli flakes
6)Throw the salt in. Don't mix.
Now put it little bake bins and bake for 10 to 15 minutes. They should be firm on the outside and soft inside. Cool, place in plastic container, refrigerate.So I lied, it far nicer if you wait till the next day.
Enjoy your exciting book with the equally exciting Chocolate, Chilli Excites.
A night time, watching TV, snack is best with a chocolate thin, dark and sexy. It stays on your tongue, melting gently, soothingly, preparing you for good dreams. A chocolate to read with is a totally different person. It also depends on the book you are reading. If the book promises no great excitement, you might as well get from your chocolate--a chunky, nutty, milk chocolate that kind of gets you hooked.
If you are reading King or Clancy, I recommend something exciting to keep in pace with the excitement each page unravels.
You might try Chocolate Chilli Excites. It easy and quick to make and you can soon settle down with your book.What you need:
150gm salted butter
200 gm dark chocolate
150 gm sugar
5 eggs
A tablespoon of flour
Pinch of salt
Half a teaspoon of chilli flakes. Some may suggest ground chilli. But I feel that chilli flakes give you just the right thrill to go with King's latest best-seller.
1)First melt the butter and chocolate together carefully in a saucepan.
2)Pour into a mixing bowl and blend in the sugar.
3)Add the eggs one-by-one stirring it in well. It is mysterious but it turns out better when you add the eggs one-by-one than all in one go.
4)Add the flour and mix it in.
5)Add the chilli flakes
6)Throw the salt in. Don't mix.
Now put it little bake bins and bake for 10 to 15 minutes. They should be firm on the outside and soft inside. Cool, place in plastic container, refrigerate.So I lied, it far nicer if you wait till the next day.
Enjoy your exciting book with the equally exciting Chocolate, Chilli Excites.
Sunday 2 November 2008
10 REASONS WHY CHOCOLATE SHOULD BE DECLARED A UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE.
A group of us Chocolatiers noted with alarm that there was some discussion among some French culinary practitioners, in Paris, to declare French cuisine a part of UNESCO World Heritage.Of course that is quite absurd.The only thing quite international about French food is probably French Fries. But that was invented by the Belgians. Indonesian cuisine is much older, more sophisticated, more complex and more varied.But we put that aside for a while.
However we felt that if any food should be declared as part of the UNESCO World Heritage it should be chocolate or cocoa.Here are our reasons. UNESCO please take note.
1)Chocolate has been a thrilling, multi-dimensional, monument to man's ingenuity for 3000 years.
2)Chocolate is "exceptional in its universal application.It now belongs to all the peoples of the world." Not to Switzerland nor to Belgium.
3) Chocolate begins with the humblest and most needed segment of mankind--the smallholder farmer. Fifty million of them located along the equator, around the world.
4)Chocolate is the world's biggest "monument" in the world, stretching from Mexico to
the South Pacific islands.
5) Cocoa and Chocolate continuously challenges and excites the creativity of a community of millions of artisans, hobbyists, home industries, manufacturers and scientists and technologists.
6) Chocolate is the world most loved and respected flavour.
7)A potential exists for Chocolate as an universal food solution: nutritious, satisfying and uplifting.
8)Today it has acquired and has been absorbed into the cultural characteristics of the hundreds countries in which is enjoyed.
9)Chocolate and Cocoa have enhanced more foods round the world than any other flavour or food.
10)There is always a chocolate for every person. From a mini bar or wafer costing 5 cents to $250 per praline.
There is obviously no other food that deserves to be declared a world treasure and part of UNESCO World Heritage.
However we felt that if any food should be declared as part of the UNESCO World Heritage it should be chocolate or cocoa.Here are our reasons. UNESCO please take note.
1)Chocolate has been a thrilling, multi-dimensional, monument to man's ingenuity for 3000 years.
2)Chocolate is "exceptional in its universal application.It now belongs to all the peoples of the world." Not to Switzerland nor to Belgium.
3) Chocolate begins with the humblest and most needed segment of mankind--the smallholder farmer. Fifty million of them located along the equator, around the world.
4)Chocolate is the world's biggest "monument" in the world, stretching from Mexico to
the South Pacific islands.
5) Cocoa and Chocolate continuously challenges and excites the creativity of a community of millions of artisans, hobbyists, home industries, manufacturers and scientists and technologists.
6) Chocolate is the world most loved and respected flavour.
7)A potential exists for Chocolate as an universal food solution: nutritious, satisfying and uplifting.
8)Today it has acquired and has been absorbed into the cultural characteristics of the hundreds countries in which is enjoyed.
9)Chocolate and Cocoa have enhanced more foods round the world than any other flavour or food.
10)There is always a chocolate for every person. From a mini bar or wafer costing 5 cents to $250 per praline.
There is obviously no other food that deserves to be declared a world treasure and part of UNESCO World Heritage.
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