For love and chocolate
Tuesday, June 7, 2011 at 11:49AM This blog is not a forum for me to brag about my boyfriend, I do enough of that in person, however as this story relates so directly to food, I feel I have license to tell it here.
I was standing in the duty free shop in Turin airport yesterday morning, utterly inconsolable and doing nothing to quell the loud sobbing or prevent the tears from streaming down my face. Latino Man was running madly around the store which sold traditional Piemontese food products, grabbing brands of crema di cioccolato and waving them in front of me. Like I child I blurted between sobs “I don’t want another kind of crema di cioccolato, I want my Guido Castagna crema di cioccolato.”
Moments earlier, it had been confiscated by security.
It was entirely my fault. I knew I should have packed it in my check-in bag. Instead it went, along with my entire swag of chocolate, into my carry-on suitcase, to be discovered a few hours later by an x-ray machine. When I realised my mistake, I tried for the sake of propriety to maintain my composure, aware that most people wouldn’t consider two tubs of chocolate-spread anything to cry over. That was until the security guy, with flourish and I suspect a tiny bit of satisfaction, dumped my carefully wrapped chocolate in the bin. Then I let go and did the full ugly-cry in the middle of the airport.
You have to understand, loyal reader, what I had lost in that moment was some of the world’s most swoon-inducing chocolate. And I know how much time, love and energy was in that chocolate, because I spent two weeks in Guido Castagna’s workshop watching him make it.
Guido’s process is the working definition of artisanal, with several hands coaxing the cocoa through the steps from bean to bar. It starts with giant jute bags of cocoa beans, plus the occasional stone, twig, piece of bark or random item that may have fallen from the pocket of the guy who packed the beans, like a lighter for example. This is why the beans need to be sorted by hand to remove anything that is not bean, something I spent hours doing. You might think this is a lowly and boring task, but actually it was one of my favourite activities. Firstly I got to know the beans very intimately and I had time to appreciate the differences between countries and even between batches. Secondly it gave me some time to chat with my fellow stagista Giulietta, who is one of the most interesting people I have met. And finally, it’s a very zen-like task which allowed me to imagine, in great detail, my future chocolate shop / tasting venue / temple of cocoa.
Once the beans are sorted, Guido roasts them in a small gas-flame rotary roaster, 10kg at a time. Two small machines handle the process of winnowing, both of which were invented by Guido’s father-in-law Sergio. The beans are scooped into the first machine which breaks them into smaller pieces. The resulting mix is scooped into the second machine which uses vacuum to separate the skins from the nibs — the pieces of cocoa kernel that will eventually become delicious chocolate. Unfortunately the second winnowing machine also vacuums up the cocoa powder along with the skins, so the skin mix is hand-sifted to remove the cocoa powder, which is then added to the nibs.
Another two machines handle the milling. The first, a giant two-stone roller crushes the nibs and forms a thick paste called cocoa liquor. This is scooped (yes, more scooping) into a large ball mill which is literally the giant among machines in this workshop. It can handle up to 100kg of cocoa liquor at a time, so ten batches of cocoa from the roaster equals one batch in the ball mill.
The cocoa liquor is then pumped into the conche. This is an open-top vat which kneads the cocoa liquor and allows some volatile phenols, the kind that create acidity in the chocolate, to escape. The amount of time the cocoa liquor spends in the conche depends on the beans. For Mexican Chontalpa an overnight conching is sufficient. However Madagascar cocoa is considerably more acidic and will spend 76 hours in the conche in order to achieve the right flavour.
After conching, the cocoa liquor is scooped (yep) into large plastic moulds and given a couple of months in storage to mature. Then it’s ready to be transformed into one of Guido Castagna’s fine chocolate products, like Crema di Cioccolato for example.
Sitting in the bin at Turin Airport Security, wrapped several times in plastic bags to protect the few items of clothing in my suitcase (which were in fact placed in my suitcase to protect the chocolate) were a 200gram tub of “CQ” and another of “55+”. The former is chocolate with just enough Piemontese hazelnuts to turn into into a cream (which turns out to be 12%) and has the consistency of vegemite. The latter is 68% hazelnuts and therefore contains enough hazelnut oil to turn into into a thick liquid, the kind you could dip your cherries into, an activity I highly recommend. No other brand of chocolate spread was going to compensate emotionally or gastronomically for the loss of these two tubs. Seeing the puffy red wet face of his girlfriend in that moment, Latino Man understood this and made the ultimate airport sacrifice.
He realised that Turin Airport Security were simply following the rules which state that no liquid (or cream) in a container greater than 100ml or 100 grams can be taken on the plane. In other words, the contents of the tubs were not a problem, it was the tubs themselves. So he took his keys out of his pocket, removed his belt, gave me his suitcase, and walked back through airport security. Out in the pre-security section he went to the pharmacy and bought four 100ml sterilised plastic containers with screw-on lids, the kind a doctor gives you for a urine sample. He joined the security queue for a second time, put the plastic containers through the x-ray machine, and walked through the metal detector. Then, using the Alessi spoon he had purchased duty-free, he retrieved my chocolate from the otherwise-empty-and-in-no-way-manky bin, and transferred the contents of the 200-gram tubs into the plastic containers. (As it turned out, we were carrying less than 100 grams of each which means we ate the other 100 grams in a single sitting the previous day.) Airport Security were perfectly happy with this solution, and even helped clean up the tiny bit of chocolate-spillage with one of the shoe covers they give to people unfortunate enough to be wearing shoes that could potentially fit a lethal device in their soles.
Guido Castagna Crema di Cioccolato "55+"
That’s how much Latino Man loves me, he will walk back through airport security to buy pee-cups for my chocolate.
Grazie mille to Guido and his incredibly lovely and dedicated team including Alessio, Paolo, Giulietta and Andrea in the workshop, and Faye, Anna and Cristina who lovingly wrap, pack and sell the chocolate. It was an honour to make chocolate with you.
Reader Comments (5)
This is the most romantic real life thing I've ever heard.
You're lucky to have him Suzie... he is a true gentleman.
Awwww, Latino Man is a wonderful man! I think it runs in their family :) I'm Latino Mans brothers girlfriend and he has been known to be pretty sweet too, Latina Mama did something right by those boys :)
Amy! This is a strange way to meet but I'll take it. Thanks for reading my blog. Having finally met El Hermano de Latino Man a few weeks ago I would have to agree, it runs in the family.
Castagna's Crema +55 and gianduiotti are extraordinary. Very jealous of your opportunity to spend two weeks in his laboratory.