Tips on tasting, healthy chocolate consumption, scientific findings.
Since I’m fascinated with where food comes from, the next logical step in my ‘farm-to-table’ ‘bean-to-bar’ chocolate adventures was to try growing my own cacao trees…in London!
It was a challenge, with the first hurdle being to get fresh pods back from Ingemann in Nicaragua through US customs. After enduring a good hours’ worth of questioning by a typically Texan border enforcement official, the pods were let through!
Please note: This article will not tell you how to to give up chocolate, that’s not the point.
The “Chocoholic”, as defined by Google and the English Oxford Dictionary reads: ‘A person who is addicted to, or very fond of, chocolate’, Wikipedia goes on to state: ‘A chocoholic is a person who craves or compulsively consumes chocolate.’ Sound familiar? There is even evidence to support this theory.
Our tongue is an amazing muscular organ, capable of detecting a range of different flavours on its taste buds. Until fairly recently it was believed the tongue resembled a ‘map’ of regions that detected these different flavours in groups – salty, sweet, sour, bitter etc as presented by German scientist David P. Hanig. Recent findings show this was in fact, a miss translation. But it’s not just the tongue and its taste buds that is important when it comes to taste and flavour detection, the nose plays an equally, if not more important role. Without your sense of smell, the range of different flavours that your tongue can detect is dampened by a staggering 60%, that’s why when you are sick you can’t taste your food much.
The Adventures of Elle Coco 