The first time I knew I wanted to be a writer was when I was 5 years old. My entire school was ushered into the assembly hall where we sat cross-legged on the floor to watch a movie about chocolate. The film arrived on a giant spool and was threaded into the projector by one of our more tech savvy teachers. Yes, school films were the height of technical sophistication back in 1962.
The black-and-white film was produced by Cadbury’s, Britain’s best-known chocolatier. It told the entire story of the chocolate-making process from the planting of the cocoa bean to the moment the finished bar was unwrapped and enjoyed.
In order for the teachers to pretend it wasn’t an excuse for them to have an hour off, we were given the task of writing a report on the film after. The best would win a prize of six chocolate bars!
Looking back, I cannot imagine how I even formed my letters back in those days, but somehow I won and my love affair with writing — and chocolate — was born. It was the first and last time I would win an award for anything so much as I’d like to call myself an award-winning writer, I can’t because I ate the proof.
Never forgetting the momentous occasion that launched my career, I was thrilled when I had the opportunity to make my own chocolate in Roatan, Honduras, last month. Lest you think I was visiting on a mission trip or researching how they are faring during the pandemic, I must come clean. It was merely an excursion during a cruise stop. When you don’t like water sports (by which I mean water and sports), there’s precious little to do in the Caribbean.
Grumpy, a self-appointed expert in all things food related, was keen to share some of his personal knowledge with me as we sat with 20 other people shelling roasted cocoa beans in the heat.
“I bet you didn’t know cocoa pods came in different colors, did you?” he said smugly.
“Well, no,” I admitted, snapping a photo of a pile that were yellow, orange and green.
“That’s how they get different kinds of chocolate. The green ones are dark, the yellow ones white…”
“Are you sure about that?” I replied. “I thought the different types were made by adding differing amounts of cocoa butter.”
It’s funny how I can retain knowledge from 60 years ago but can’t remember what possessed me to take Grumpy on this trip. I half expected him to start shaking the pods to see which held the Kinder Surprise.
“So how many cocoa beans do you think it takes to make one Hershey’s Kiss?” he continued unfazed.
“None!” I replied immediately. I mean, have you tasted that stuff?
Shelling cocoa beans is harder than it sounds. They can be fragile little critters so it’s easy for them to turn to dust just as you’re getting the last little bit of outer casing off. But if you remove the shell correctly, after 20 minutes you’re left with a perfect bean that smells like chocolate and impatience.
More Top Picks Ratings
If I really was an award-winning writer, I could present you with enough information to make your own chocolate from scratch. I could tell you how you need to grind the beans three times to make a paste. How much milk powder and sugar you need to add. What temperature you need to temper the chocolate at before chilling it. How long you need to chill it in ice water.
But since I’m not, I’ll leave you to look all that up on the internet or better still just buy a bar in a store like Le Chocolat du Bouchard in downtown Naperville. Either way I can tell you it took 20 tourists and one local expert two hours to make about 25 individual chocolates.
I can tell you after all that time we were so desperate for a taste we’d have crossed an ocean to get our hands on a piece, which now I think of it, we already had. We were all presented with a chocolate, fresh out of the mold, as we finished our lunch.
I mentally honed my writing skills knowing I was going to share my experience with all of you. I thought back to the creative writing classes I’ve taught. Use all your senses to describe chocolate, what metaphor would you use to describe chocolate, how does eating chocolate make you feel, don’t forget to bring a box for the teacher at the end of term, that sort of thing.
It looked like a perfect dark shell, which only melted a little under the touch of our warm fingers. It smelt like a Mexican prince who had spent just a little too long in the sun. It was as rich as an American tourist, but smaller than anything served to them on the cruise ship that week.
But the taste … that taste. We’ll never forget that taste.
It tasted like … a handful of ground birdseed stirred into a kale salad, doused in that bitter stuff you put on your nails to stop biting them. (Don’t ask how I know that last one, just praise the Lord for acrylic nails). It was my biggest shock since discovering Mexican chocolate mole isn’t made from those underground creatures that live in the back yard.
I suppose if there’s one good thing about the experience, it’s that I didn’t have it when I was 5 years old. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have won an award for critiquing chocolate, and then where would I be?
Hilary Decent is a freelance journalist who moved from England to Naperville in 2007.