The Return Of Good Cocoa

Foods from a century ago were supposedly were the best. They were more organic, more flavorful and created with craftsmanship and care. At least one food may be going back to its; root .Chocolate. A new discovery of the extinct cocoa beans used a century ago are coming back. This is true excitement in the chocolate world.

This was a small but captivating article in yesterday's new York Times Dining section. Dining regular , Florence Fabricant penned the piece about the Nacional cocoa beans,.The plant produces 100 per cent white beans as opposed to the usual purple. This is not where white chocolate comes from, (that's made of cocoa, sugar and milk solids). A white bean means a less acid , more mellow flavored cocoa. Unfortunately there is one slight problem. The beans are located in seeds within the pod hard to tell when they will be white or purple. Another thing that makes the beans so special is that they're grown at an altitude of 3,500 feet above sea level. This is rare because cacao grows only at 2,500 miles above sea level.

Nacional chocolate is the processed , first in Ecuador where it is , dried, fermented and processed . They are then shipped to Lima and from there - where else Switzerland . It is in the chocolate capital of the world where they are are processed into a concoction called Fortunato No 4. It's a 68 per cent high butterfat chocolate that's easy to use. The article mentions that Moonstruck Chocolatiers of Portland Oregon user Nacional chocolate. I've checked it out. The truffles and caramels made with it are expensive but they look sooo good.

Finding the Nacional cacao pod is a great treasure, indeed. It means a return to a purer, richer form of chocolate. Hopefully, through modern botany, the plant can be reproduced or at the very least bred with a lesser cacao plant to produce a good hybrid. It would definitely bring back the age of elegant chocolate and be a boon to chocolate lovers worldwide!