For the love of chocolate

Image courtesy of www.preachersinstitute.com

I am pretty sure that everyday for at least the past decade, I have consumed chocolate in at least one form or another.

I have no regrets about this. I make no apologies.

Chocolate is a food group in my mind and I'm okay with that.

Since I live and breath chocolate, it seemed only appropriate that I search out the origin of my very favorite chocolate bars.

This love affair began this past spring while on a road trip through Vermont. One thing you must know about me, is that I love food. I don't just love food, I love really good food. Forget fast food and highly processed, boxed food, those don't really qualify as food. I love food made with fresh produce and unique flavors. This leads me to seek out good food, especially chocolate, wherever I travel.

Before our trip I had researched all the local attractions to visit and a quaint chocolate factory on the shores of Lake Champlain popped up in TripAdvisor. As you can imagine, I have never been one to pass up any opportunity to sample chocolate and so after walking along the lake, we stopped by.

Lake Champlain Chocolates has a small factory with a small store attached. The store has a wall of windows that allows visitors to view the process of their chocolate art. We watched as a woman hand painted chocolate into Christmas molds, while two other women placed cherries into what looked like would eventually be cherry cordials. It felt like something that would be going on in your grandma's kitchen. I perused the little store and scoffed at the price of their chocolates. I thought to myself that surely no chocolate could be worth this price. I was wrong, my friends. I. Was. Wrong. I bit into a sample of their dark chocolate bar and my life has not been the same since.

Though deeply smitten, my wallet couldn't handle purchasing a whole lot of this nectar from the gods, but after we had returned home both I and my husband were regretting not taking out a small loan to buy more. Out of desperation, I scoured their website and found that our local Whole Foods sold a limited variety of their chocolate bars.  I couldn't get there fast enough and now have a handful of bars in my pantry.

It's clear I have my priorities straight.

You may be wondering what makes this chocolate so special. I had the same question too and so I dug a little deeper to find out why exactly Lake Champlain Chocolate (LCC) is so very good.

It all starts with the cacao bean. These grow as the seed of the cacao pod. They are a bright yellow/orange color when they are ripe. The trees love the heat and grow in countries close to the equator in both South America and Africa, but in order to become the treat we are used to consuming, the cacao beans must go through an extensive process.

Image courtesy of www.ediblehi.com

First the beans, the size of an olive and white color,  must be removed from the fruit by hand and exposed to light. This changes their color to a purplish color. They are then fermented by either being put in piles or boxes and then covered by banana leaves. They are left to sit for 2-9 days and this begins to develop the chocolate flavor we all know.

The fermented beans then need to be dried. The beans are laid out on boards or mats in the sun and rake continually for even drying. One the beans are dry, they are graded and packaged to sell on the international market.

Image courtesy of www.theepochtimes.com

To make chocolate out of those dried beans is quite an extensive procedure. The beans are washed and then the meat of the bean, the nib, is removed from the shell in a process called winnowing. After the beans are winnowed, they are ground into cocoa mass, also called cocoa liquor. This is solid at room temperature and when high pressure is applied separates in cocoa butter (the fat) and cocoa powder. 

Image courtesy of www.medicinehunter.com

If simply making chocolate is your desire, skip the high pressure process and simply combine the cocoa liquor with more cocoa butter and sugar for dark chocolate or cocoa butter, sugar and milk powder for milk chocolate.  White chocolate uses only the cocoa butter, sugar and milk powder.

Next the chocolate goes through a process called conching. This is a process of rolling, kneading, heating and aeration. This step is vital to the final texture and taste of the chocolate.

Image courtesy of www.pairswellwithfood.com

Finally, the chocolate is tempered before it is send away to the chocolatier to be made into delicious desserts. During the tempering process, the chocolate is slowing brought to a certain temperature and reaches its stable form. It gives the chocolate its shine and snap.

LCC is both a chocolatier and a direct source chocolate maker, meaning they buy chocolate that has already gone through the process listed above, as well as, produce chocolate themselves. Ninety-five percent of the chocolate LCC sells is fair-trade. The cacao used in their Blue Bandana line of chocolate is directly sourced from Guatemala and Madagascar. The chocolate is then made in their facilities.

Image courtesy of www.lakechamplainchocolates.com

In addition to the quality chocolate LCC uses in their processes, they also source their additional ingredients locally. Fresh Vermont cream, butter, honey and maple syrup help make their chocolates so unique.

Before tasting LCC chocolates I had never really thought about the source of the chocolate I eat to feed my addiction. Their chocolate is a source of proof, however, that fresh, quality ingredients make for a better product. I have since noted that most of my favorite food products are made with similar standards. I like to look for locally sourced products if I can afford them. I not only enjoy their superior quality, but also enjoy supporting smaller companies.

If you so desire, I highly recommend trying out some chocolates from LCC, but beware, once you start you may not be able to stop and this addiction isn't cheap. I have already sent loved ones my chocolate wish list.

"All About Chocolate." Lake Champlain Chocolates. 2103. Web. 24 September 2015.

Tracing my agricultural roots

I grew up living just 15 minutes from my maternal grandparents. Our Sunday afternoons were spent dining around their table sharing pot roast and mashed potatoes. They would often have us over to help with housework or to earn money mowing their lawn. I thought I knew a lot about my grandparents, but as I have gotten older, I’ve learned more and more details that I wish I would have been able to question them about when they were living. I was in my teens when I learned that my grandfather had herded livestock from Brigham City out to the family pasture land in Promontory Point, but by the time I realized the significance his past had in my own life, he had passed away.

As much time as I spent with my grandpa, I can only recall vague memories of the stories he would tell us of his childhood. I had always known that he grew up in Brigham City, Utah where his family had owned the main town mercantile. I knew that his father had been a prominent leader within the Latter-Day Saint community, but until I dug a little deeper into researching his past, I had no idea what role they played.

I came across a website written by my mother’s cousin, who actually happens to have been named after my grandpa. How had I never known that my grandfather had a namesake?  After contacting Raymon B. Horsley II, I learned a great deal about my family’s connection to agriculture and in fact, learned that they played a very significant role in the distribution of the agriculture of northern Utah during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Brigham City is very close to Promontory Point, where in 1869 the Golden Spike linked the east and the west by joining the railroad.  This connection of transportation opened the gates for the sharing of goods from one side of the country to the other. My great grandfather, William Clements Horsley, was there when it happened and took advantage of the new opportunities it presented. Clem, as they called him, along with his sons, opened a mercantile in 1886 calling it, Horsley and Sons. Using his previous experience as manager of mercantile for the Latter-day Saints Co-op Store, Clem and his sons successfully established a thriving business and with the joining of the railroads, the agricultural harvest of the area could now be shipped across the United States. Horsley and Sons soon grew into one of the largest shippers of agricultural goods west of the Mississippi. This store remained open until 1955 when my grandfather decided that retail was not his passion, and the store was closed.

William Clements "Clem" Horsley as a younger man

Horsley and Sons 2005 and in it's early days, exact date unknown

I had always known about the store and have driven by it countless times. I knew the family owned land in Perry and out at Promontory, but now knowing more of the story, I wish I could go back and see it through different eyes. I would love to be able to see things as they were in their prime, knowing that my family played a huge role in supplying a large part of the country with the agricultural products of Utah. I wish now that I could sit down with my deceased grandpa and hear his account of his life in Brigham City.

Citations

Horsley, Ray. "William C. Horsley Family". www.wchorsley.org/home.html. Images.

Horsley, Raymond B. II "Re: Horlsey Family History." Message to the author. 10 Sept. 2015. E-mail.