I am Learning to Eat Chocolate: Part I – I’m Melting!
For years, I have been doing it all wrong. I admit it. Although it always seemed like a good idea, I realize now, my technique….was incomplete. It was all about EATING CHOCOLATE. So sad. Now the physical realm is fully eclipsed by a deeper spiritual and emotional connection to chocolate. Eating chocolate is sexy, but really it should not be about simple animalistic devouring. No. Consuming chocolate should escort us to a higher plane of intimacy. I realize now that my practice of savoring chocolate has been juvenile and incomplete for many decades.
Don’t get me wrong! Chocolate TASTES GOOD no matter how you eat it. So do hot dogs and poutine. But with CHOCOLATE, IT IS NOT ABOUT MASSIVE CONSUMPTION. It is about enjoying every atom the delectable cocoa bean has to give you. It actually gives up its’ life to you. Do you truly appreciate every morsel you consume, or do you wolf it down like there will be no more cocoa beans tomorrow? I used to chug my chocolate like a barfly shoots whisky. Taste hit, then nothing. So wrong!
Yet I have intuitively known how to slowly savour a beautiful steak, home made butter chicken, fine red wine, a loooong smooooth single malt. A slow sensuous kiss. Why not chocolate? It got me curious how such a venerated treat could be consumed ‘en masse’ with canine fervor, and it seems the feminine nurturers of our society are particularly vulnerable to this affliction. I too, a self-proclaimed connoisseur of all things delectable, succumb to brutish gluttony in the presence of chocolate.
So I studied it. How to eat chocolate. There are no authentic bibles, no clear swami’s, no documented perfect methods for chocolating. Yes Chocolating! My truth came when I gave up EATING chocolate, and instead started to experiment with Chocolating.
Def’n: Chocolating (Oral Chocolate Melting). The act of melting chocolate in your mouth and extracting maximum flavor until all of the chocolate disappears, without ever chewing, or otherwise swallowing un-melted cocoa.
On the Puntocolate scale of 1-10, I have concluded that the simple eating of chocolate (chewing and swallowing) extracts less than 10% of the total cocoa flavor contained in the chocolate! The great news is that it is possible for human beings to easily extract over 90% of the cocoa flavor by simply melting the chocolate on your tongue, gums, and pallet, and avoid swallowing the chocolate whole. The trick for me is to ‘disintigrate’ and ‘distribute’ the chocolate in my warm, luscious mouth until all the cocoa taste has been absorbed. Thus, I AM LEARNING TO EAT CHOCOLATE. Interestingly, melting works well not only on expensive, high % cocoa chocolates, but it also improves the dreamy experience with cheaper chocolates.
Fine people of PERB, tell me about your chocolating wisdom. Tell me how you extract every morsel of flavour. I want to hear it. And please, make it sexy! After all, I am just learning to eat chocolate, and I have so much to learn.
-Punt.
For years, I have been doing it all wrong. I admit it. Although it always seemed like a good idea, I realize now, my technique….was incomplete. It was all about EATING CHOCOLATE. So sad. Now the physical realm is fully eclipsed by a deeper spiritual and emotional connection to chocolate. Eating chocolate is sexy, but really it should not be about simple animalistic devouring. No. Consuming chocolate should escort us to a higher plane of intimacy. I realize now that my practice of savoring chocolate has been juvenile and incomplete for many decades.
Don’t get me wrong! Chocolate TASTES GOOD no matter how you eat it. So do hot dogs and poutine. But with CHOCOLATE, IT IS NOT ABOUT MASSIVE CONSUMPTION. It is about enjoying every atom the delectable cocoa bean has to give you. It actually gives up its’ life to you. Do you truly appreciate every morsel you consume, or do you wolf it down like there will be no more cocoa beans tomorrow? I used to chug my chocolate like a barfly shoots whisky. Taste hit, then nothing. So wrong!
Yet I have intuitively known how to slowly savour a beautiful steak, home made butter chicken, fine red wine, a loooong smooooth single malt. A slow sensuous kiss. Why not chocolate? It got me curious how such a venerated treat could be consumed ‘en masse’ with canine fervor, and it seems the feminine nurturers of our society are particularly vulnerable to this affliction. I too, a self-proclaimed connoisseur of all things delectable, succumb to brutish gluttony in the presence of chocolate.
So I studied it. How to eat chocolate. There are no authentic bibles, no clear swami’s, no documented perfect methods for chocolating. Yes Chocolating! My truth came when I gave up EATING chocolate, and instead started to experiment with Chocolating.
Def’n: Chocolating (Oral Chocolate Melting). The act of melting chocolate in your mouth and extracting maximum flavor until all of the chocolate disappears, without ever chewing, or otherwise swallowing un-melted cocoa.
On the Puntocolate scale of 1-10, I have concluded that the simple eating of chocolate (chewing and swallowing) extracts less than 10% of the total cocoa flavor contained in the chocolate! The great news is that it is possible for human beings to easily extract over 90% of the cocoa flavor by simply melting the chocolate on your tongue, gums, and pallet, and avoid swallowing the chocolate whole. The trick for me is to ‘disintigrate’ and ‘distribute’ the chocolate in my warm, luscious mouth until all the cocoa taste has been absorbed. Thus, I AM LEARNING TO EAT CHOCOLATE. Interestingly, melting works well not only on expensive, high % cocoa chocolates, but it also improves the dreamy experience with cheaper chocolates.
Fine people of PERB, tell me about your chocolating wisdom. Tell me how you extract every morsel of flavour. I want to hear it. And please, make it sexy! After all, I am just learning to eat chocolate, and I have so much to learn.
-Punt.
