Belgian Chocolate Surprise

January 10, 2008 · Filed Under Food Review · Comment 

Product:

Grilled Piedmont Hazelnut Chocolate

Manufacturer:

Laurent Gerbaud

Manufacturer Details:

Laurent Gerbaud Chocolatier Bruxelles
Centre Dansaert
7 rue d’Alost
B-1000 Bruxelles
Belgium.

www.chocolatsgerbaud.be

Manufacturer Blurb:

… A touch of wood, a captivating chocolate. A delicate harmony for Laurent Gerbaud’s rare chocolate created with the best cocoa beans originating from Ecuador and the Sambirano Valley in Madagascar, the power of the chocolate resonates with the finesse of the grilled nuts. Bite after bite, it is a temptation you cannot resist…

Ingredients:

Dark chocolate 70% cocoa minimum (cocoa paste, cocoa butter, cane sugar), grilled hazelnuts (nuts 25% chocolate 75%)

Retailer:

Bought at Waitrose

Review:

It was odd to be bought chocolates for Christmas, as I am not that bothered about the stuff. Some people are addicted and need their daily fix, but to me, chocolate is just a sweet and only marginally less childish than the sticky, crunchy, gooey and frequently neon-coloured confections which children employ to rot their teeth before they reach their teens.

Most chocolate produced on an industrial scale and sold through supermarkets, garages and newsagents under an internationally known brand name is, of course, nothing more than congealed muck held together with sugar and anything else which is cheap and sticks. It always tastes the same and gives you enough energy to fly a battleship which is at the bottom of a sea of glue to Mars and back and once you have eaten it, your face and those of everyone around you within seven miles erupts into yellow and green pustules, the contents of which can then be sold back to the confectioners as the ingredients for novelty sweets.

So, was the concoction of Mr Gerbaud any different?

There is something about what might be termed ‘artisan’ chocolates which can be quite insulting. In order to show that the product is not made on a vast scale by machines the size of a block of flats, the small chocolatier will go to great lengths to throw together the thing he wants you to buy with such bravado and abandon that it seems he could not care less what it looks like. In this case, a piece of tyre rubber stuck with pieces of gravel.

OK, that may not quite be true. It looks like a puddle of dark chocolate has been poured carelessly into a mould and whole hazelnuts have then been thrown on top. That’s it. No finesse, no care, no aesthetic value, no attention to detail. If you imagined the proprietor of a transport cafe being given the chance to make a bar of chocolate, when all he had done hitherto was throw together cheese sandwiches and mugs of tea, this is what he would come up with, probably saying, “Well, it’s choclit, innit?”

So, in view of the fact that we are always told that Belgian chocolate is the finest in the world, my only worry is how bad it could possibly be when it comes from countries which cannot make that boast. Oh, hang on, though. That would be the usual muck sold in newsagents and garages under the international brand names.

Which Was It?

Manna From Heaven
Food Fit For Kings
Decidedly Average At Best
Not Fit For A Dog
Not Even Food But Industrial Effluent

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