The year of chocolate

Consumers have been sweet on this treat for some time, but the confection is coming out of the box as an indulgence for all courses

By Kitty Crider

AMERICAN-STATESMAN FOOD EDITOR

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Chocolate is flowing this holiday season. On the party scene, chocolate fountains have moved out of the exclusive caterer's province to units for the home. On the nibble front, confection companies have flavored chocolates with herbs and commissioned big-name chefs to design collections commanding $125 a pound. At the chocolate factory, manufacturers, having taken new interest in the origin of beans, blend them in more and challenging ways for signature flavors and styles. Everywhere there is escalating interest in the dark, rich food of indulgence.

Consumers have a new awareness that chocolate comes from a place and not just from a wrapper, says Alice Medrich of Berkeley, Calif., often called the queen of chocolate. They know that good chocolate starts with the bean, just like coffee, and that the right preparation techniques are crucial.

Americans long have loved chocolate candy, she continues. But now, chocolate has risen above the status of candy and sweet treatments to savory, with herbs, sauces, even chicken livers.

"I know that sounds weird but it is not weird," says Medrich, who likes to finish sautéed or chopped chicken livers with a little cocoa powder.

Medrich is a three-time winner of cookbook of the year awards from both the James Beard Foundation and the International Association of Culinary Professionals. She was the founder of Cocolat, a groundbreaking Berkeley pastry shop three decades ago that jump-started the country's love affair with truffles. And, while her shop is now closed, she continues to write and teach about chocolate.

In Austin on Tuesday night to teach a chocolate class at Central Market, Medrich says this country will see the continuing trend of many, many levels and intensities of chocolate. Look for less sugar, stronger flavors and increased listing of cocoa percentages in big numbers on wrappers. Ghirardelli is labeling percentages now. So are Guittard, Valrhona, Lindt, Scharffen Berger and others. More recipes will specify what cocoa-percentage of chocolate to use in a dish, a practice Medrich began with her multi-awarded book "Bittersweet."

"I have always been interested in bittersweet chocolate," she said in a phone interview before her visit. "But 30 years ago, bittersweet was sweeter. Milk chocolate was a bigger seller."

Milk chocolate still outsells dark in this country, she says, but dark chocolate is on the increase, and not just on the East and West coasts. Dark chocolates today range from dark to dark, dark, dark. (Milk chocolate is about 35 percent cocoa; semisweet, 50 percent; bittersweet, 60 percent; unsweetened, or baking, 95 percent or more.)

"I love the Scharffen Berger, the 70 percent. And Valrhona. That is lovely," Medrich says.

Dark chocolate has been touted recently as a healthy food for its flavanols, which have antioxidant properties. But nutritionists do not give it unqualified blessings. Bonnie Liebman, director of nutrition for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, says in its Nutrition Action Healthletter: "The evidence is not very consistent and still skimpy that flavanols can reduce the risk of heart disease . . . The chocolate industry wants to turn it into a health food, but it's still candy. With two out of three Americans overweight, the last thing we need is another excuse to eat chocolate."

Medrich cherishes chocolate for its flavor. "I eat chocolate every day one way or another, but increasingly it is not a dessert or confection. It is just a bit of a bar."

She confesses to sitting down at a table with a friend, a bar of good dark chocolate and a knife and sharing nibbles together. "The chocolate itself pleases me now as opposed to a dessert."

This unadulterated pleasure is a reversal for a woman known for her chocolate creations and whose new book, "Chocolate Holidays," (Artisan, $15.95) suggests using chocolate to fill blintzes, lace stollen or flavor mousses.

She makes lots of cookies with chocolate nibs, the roasted, hulled, broken cocoa beans. They are crunchy like nuts, and she even sprinkles them on salad. John Scharffenberger, co-founder of Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker, told her recently that the nibs have become a cult product.

Medrich credits Scharffen Berger with raising the bar for fine, dark chocolate in this country. The Berkeley company, begun less than 10 years ago by a physician and a former winemaker, does every step of its chocolate, from bean to bar. "They created enough of a stir that they have influenced older manufacturers," says Medrich. In fact, Hershey moved into gourmet dark chocolate last summer by acquiring Scharffen Berger, as well as Joseph Schmidt Confections, and forming an artisan subsidiary.

Other chocolatiers are making news, too. Godiva hired nationally known pastry chef Norman Love to design its G Collection of artful bonbons, a 48-piece pound box that goes for $125. Last year, Austinite Tom Pedersen of Kakawa Pure Whole Bean Chocolate introduced his fresh-roasted whole cocoa beans wrapped in layers of dark, milk and white chocolate. His product is so unique that Saveur chose it for the national food magazine's salute to 100 notable people, places and things in the January issue. Pedersen, this fall, added spicy chocolate coins for savory dishes and lumps of chocolate for drinks. In San Francisco, chocolate craftsman Michael Recchiuti, author of "Chocolate Obsession," has created confections of star anise and pink peppercorn, jasmine tea, lavender and vanilla that have achieved acclaim.

Medrich admits to being a bit more conservative with chocolate. She doesn't think everything draped or dripped in chocolate works. Some early herb experiments, she thought, were too heavy-handed and tasted medicinal. On the other hand, balance and restraint make some combos work nicely, she says.

Fran Bigelow, founder of Fran's Chocolates in Seattle, sprinkled smoked sea salt on her milk chocolate-wrapped caramels. The result took home the gold trophy for the 2005 outstanding confection in the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade competition in New York. She's one of the chocolatiers making "single origin chocolate of superior grade cacao beans . . . grown in Ecuador and Venezuela that reveal distinct characteristics and depth of flavor."

That's chocolate 2005.

The coming year, predicts Medrich, will see more attention on the growing and harvesting stages of the cacao tree, "so the quality of the manufactured product may be something beyond our imaginations."

International restaurant consultants Joseph Baum & Michael Whiteman Co. of New York predict that 2006 will see restaurants pairing specific chocolates with specialty cocktails; cheese-chocolate-port menus, and serving more exotic flavor combinations such as chili-spiked chocolate, chocolate-covered corn and balsamic vinegar chocolate. Mars is opening a chain of chocolate lounges where the company is selling a Starbucks-like experience. Über hot chocolates in exotic flavor variations might be next.

Will the flow of chocolate become a flood?

kcrider@statesman.com; 445-3656