Dagoba chocolate
Originally broadcast: Oct. 25, 2007
Deep in the cocoa bean plantations of Brazil and beyond, there’s a chocolate revolution underway. Deep, dark, intense, pure chocolate — extreme chocolate — is rising up as the chocolate of choice like never before among chocolate connoisseurs and beyond.
Chocolate that lives very close to the bean. Forget milk chocolate. This is 70 percent pure cacao. 80 percent. 90 percent. 100 percent. Intense.
Food and drink super-guru Bill Buford is up to his neck in it. Literally naked in a vat of beans.
This hour, in an archive edition of On Point: New Yorker gourmand Bill Buford takes us deep into rain forest, dark beans, and extreme chocolate.
-Tom Ashbrook
Guests:
Bill Buford, staff writer for The New Yorker magazine, his article “Extreme Chocolate” appears in the current issue. He is the author of “Heat : An Amateur’s Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany.”
Diego Badaro, a cacao farmer, his family plantation lies on the banks of the Rio de Contas in the Bahia rain forest of Brazil. His ancestors, also cacao plantation owners, figure largely in the writing of famed Brazilian novelist Jorge Amado.
Chocolates discussed/tasted by host Tom Ashbrook and The New Yorker’s Bill Buford:
Many thanks to Chocosphere.com for providing us with samples for our taste test.
Name: XOCOLATL
Maker: Dagoba
Purity: 74%
Origin: Various
This is a “flavored” chocolate bar, atypical of the others tasted this hour. But it has a lot of history behind it: It’s made with chile, vanilla and nutmeg, and so apparently is very close to the preparation that used to be made for the Aztec king Montezuma.
Name: AMPAMAKIA
Maker: Valrhona
Purity: 64%
Origin: Millot Plantation, Madagascar
The bar was made from the 2006 vintage of the Millot plantation. Details normally associated with fine wines — vintage, cru or origin, etc. — are being introduced into this chocolate business. Madagascar is said to make some of the finest.
Name: ANTILLES
Maker: Scharffen Berger
Purity: 75%
Origin: Trinidad, Grenada, Dominican Republic and Coastal Venezuela
Scharffen Berger was the first American maker to put cacao content on the package.
Name: MILAGROS
Maker: Dagoba
Purity: 68%
Origin: Peruvian Amazon, forestero bean
Dagoba’s Peruvian bar.
Name: SAMBIRANO
Maker: Domori
Purity: 100%
Origin/Type: Sambirano Valley, Madagascar. Trinitario, with high criollo genotype.
Almost pure cocoa. Very intense. Domori claims to be the first company to renew heirloom varietals of criollo cacao.
Name: CHUAO
Maker: Valrhona
Purity: 65%
Origin: Aragua Venezuela
2002 vintage. The bar is well past its sell-by date, illustrating how well chocolate keeps, and raising the question of whether a vintage develops unique flavors — or flavors that can’t be reproduced today.
Name: EROS
Maker: Dagoba
Purity: 74%
Origin: Various
Chocolate as aphrodisiac. This bar is actually an infusion with boysenberry and botanicals, “to awaken the heart,” says the wrapper.
How to Taste Chocolate
by Joanne Kryszek, Co-founder of Chocosphere:
Make sure your palette is clear. You can use room temperature water, crackers or bread before starting and between each tasting.
- Look: Dark chocolate can be reddish brown to dark brown. It should be shiny, but may have unusual patterns from the tempering process. This is normal.
- Snap: The chocolate should snap when broken. Break into bite size pieces.
- Smell: Smell the chocolate because a portion of taste is associated with the aroma.
- Chew: Bite the chocolate and break it in your mouth a few times, being careful not to swallow. Allow the warmth of your mouth melt the chocolate completely. Get the chocolate all around your mouth, on the tip and back of your tongue and at the sides and back of your mouth. Different areas in your mouth have the ability to taste sweet, bitter, tart and other taste sensations.
- Experience: This is where the fun is. Talk about what you are tasting. Chocolate can have all kinds of taste characteristics. Don’t be surprised…you can experience nuts, citrus, coffee, wood, leather, smoke, butter, bread and jam-like tastes
Tags: chocolate, dark chocolate
Where’s the list? Where are the pictures?
Posted by Jeanette, on December 29th, 2008 at 11:39 AMDo you have a list of the Chocolates you tasted? Also, what are the regions in the world that produce the bean and how many types are there?
Enjoyed the program.
Frank
Posted by Frank M, on December 29th, 2008 at 11:54 AMI need the lists! Especially after that ooohing and ahhing over the exotic chocolates made by the man who has experimented the most with chocolates.. who? what chocolates? where???
Posted by Lorelei, on December 29th, 2008 at 11:58 AMWhere is the promised list of chocolates you promised???
Posted by lyn taylor, on December 29th, 2008 at 11:59 AMI guess since this is a re-run from two years ago, the pictures and list of chocolates is gone. (Maybe the webmaster can get them back?) Boy, this program made my mouth water!
Posted by Jeanette, on December 29th, 2008 at 12:00 PMI,too would like to see the list that Tom said would be at the site, or if would accomplish the same thing, a link to chocolate sphere.com Better late than never.
Posted by patricia ballard, on December 29th, 2008 at 12:02 PMI’m looking for the list as well. I also would like to know which of the bars are soy-free. I thought that I was allergic to chocolate (horrors!) but found out that I was just allergic to the soy lecithin most manufacturers use to make the chocolate. I just might try the beans now after listening to the show!
Posted by Jane MacKugler, on December 29th, 2008 at 12:02 PMPlease send me the list of chocolates. PLEASE!!!!!
Thanks & happy holidays to you & your families.
I listen to your show every morning–just like having my breakfast coffee!
Chow!
Jeff
Posted by Jeff, on December 29th, 2008 at 12:04 PMTom Ashbrook asked Mr. Buford which is the correct pronunciation of the word cacao. There are two different words: cocoa and cacao. The pronunciation of the first is as Mr. Ashbrook pronounced “co-co” and mostly associated with the hot drink of Americans. The second is the plant and product, “cah-cah-o”. Two words; two pronunciations.
Posted by Charles F. Weishar, on December 29th, 2008 at 12:06 PMWhere are the lists discussed on the program — or the link?
Posted by bunny lester, on December 29th, 2008 at 12:43 PMOh, would that list be great to find on your site. Information is power…and eating chocolate is the key to being powerful!
Posted by George, on December 29th, 2008 at 12:44 PMI’ve tried some of the 70% cacao bars, love the show but WHERE’S THE FULL LIST so I can try ‘em!?!
Posted by GLucas, on December 29th, 2008 at 1:02 PMThe exceptional chocolate details Mr. Buford related today made my mouth water and my soul desire to experience Belize, Madagascar, Brazil…and the special indigenous chocolates first hand. Does he offer any tours?
Happy New Year.
Posted by Beth Ewing, on December 29th, 2008 at 1:38 PMI had the opportunity to go to Trinidad and while I was riding the roads, my friend pulled over, stole a cacao pod and sliced it with his Trini machete’. Inside it was white soft seed with a tinge of color on the edge, he let me taste it, it was subtle, but delicious. I have never forgotten that experience along the rainforest roads of Trinidad. I also purchased two cacao pod bracelets while I was visiting there. One is silver one is gold. They wrap around your wrist and have cacao pods on the ends of them. I was told they symbolize the slavery in the cacao plantations, and were used as currency by slaves at one time. I became addicted to Trinidad, for real. Now I go back not for cacao but for their biggest celebration of the year, carnival. Salute’ all Trini’s!
Posted by neeny tyo, on December 29th, 2008 at 2:38 PMMy girlfriend called me to say your program was on. Luckily, I was just leaving a breakfast restaurant and listened on the car radio.
Posted by Mary Joyce, on December 29th, 2008 at 7:41 PMMy daughter is in the Peace Corps in Ecuador living on the northeast Pacific Coast in a small town called Caimito. The main product that the people grow is cacao. We visited this past summer and watched as they cut the cacao off trees with machetes. It is a red or yellow plant there bigger than a pear. Inside there are white pods that are covered with a thin slimy clear gel that is sweet. After that has been sucked off, the pod is bitter. The people in Caimito bag the pods in 100 pound bags and bring it 2 hours away on dirt roads to the nearest town, Atacames, to sell. They just finished building a drying rack so they can dry the pods and get more money for their product. I found the whole program extremely interesting. When I heard that one of your listeners connected some indigenous farmers with a fair trade company, Black and gold, I think it was called, I thought of the farmers I met this summer in Caimito. Do you have any more information about that or could you provide me with a way to contact Mr. Buford? Thanks for a great show.
I grew up half in New Orleans and half in Mexico. Chocolate, as I knew it, was never the wussy Hershey variety, but dark, rich, almost erotic in its complexity and defiantly a high.
Posted by Iris, on December 29th, 2008 at 8:36 PMAs a cook I’ve worked with these beans for years and have had to defend them. Oh! Too dark! Too bitter! Why can’t you milk it up a little bit!!
I will say, in the past eight or nine years, folks have been willing to go off the beaten path of chocolate, and I, for one, am grateful. Almost no one shies away from my ancho chocolate chili pie or honey chocolate beets.
Keep it up! Everyone try something new!
Me too! Where’s that promised list? Excellent and vicariously addictive article, that’s why I need the list… need the list… my precious… the list?
Posted by Philip Hooker, on December 29th, 2008 at 9:12 PMI know it’s wrong but I still love milk chocolate.
I’ve tried the Dagoba and other brands of dark chocolate and to me it just tastes waxy. The way I like dark chocolate is when it has a filling. My favorite is dark chocolate with caramel inside and sea salt on top. Yum!
Posted by Lisa, on December 29th, 2008 at 9:25 PMOn the way home from a visit in NH, we listened to Extreme Chocolate and found ourselves with an intense craving for cacao. We hopped off I91 and went to Whole Foods in Hadley, MA to look for nibs and/or whole cocao beans. Not only did we find them, but we found 2 other shoppers who had just heard the program and were on the hunt for chocolate too! We enjoyed our chocolate tasting and look forward to hearing more great programs!
Posted by Karyn & Thad, on December 29th, 2008 at 9:43 PMAs I write this, I am eating valrhona guanaja 70% bittersweet chocolate from Whole Foods. Until now this has been my favorite bittersweet chocolate experience, along with Sid Wainer’s bittersweet chocolate chips. But now I begin to doubt myself after listening to your great show on extreme chocolate! I now realize I am a mere neophyte and wonder what other delectible dark chocolate delights are there for me to experience? Will I ever get that list of chocolate sampled on your show? Will I become a bittersweet chocolate addict? Am I already?
Posted by Mary, on December 29th, 2008 at 11:49 PMHello everyone,
Posted by Nicole S. Urdang, on December 30th, 2008 at 9:59 AMI just want to let you know about my site: chocolateratings.wordpress.com where I review many varieties of high quality chocolates from around the world.
Peace
Mary Joyce:
The company is Green&Black’s. Their products are organic and are often available at whole foods.
Posted by Vin, on December 30th, 2008 at 1:38 PMYes please! List list list list! I heard this program when it was originally broadcast, but then I didn’t have any money or time. Now I’m going to Brazil in a few weeks and feel I should educate myself before I go!
Webmaster, please post the original lists and links for us. Thanks!
Posted by W R Kelly, on December 30th, 2008 at 3:39 PMThere was no “list” attached to the show description the 1st time it was broadcast in Oct 2007 either. You might want to check out this website however:
http://www.dagobachocolate.com/
Posted by Marty Faigin, on December 30th, 2008 at 5:35 PMYes, I also would like to see the list. Does the list include sources for the cocao beans that he was eating whole. Please ask BB to provide this to the station again so that we could find sources,
Posted by Nancy, on December 30th, 2008 at 5:54 PMWith thanks,
Nancy
Yes, please post the list again. Does it include sources for the cocao beans that BB was eating whole. There is a Dogoba website where one can order the chocolate, but I am interested in purchasing the beans.
Posted by Nancy, on December 30th, 2008 at 5:56 PMWith thanks,
Nancy
The website mentioned on the show was http://www.chocosphere.com
Hope this helps the other chocoholics among us!
Posted by Count Chocula, on December 30th, 2008 at 7:13 PM