changing the rules on how to eat chocolate
Eating chocolate is both an art and a passion. It is important truly to appreciate the "food of the gods" and eat chocolate in moderation. And to truly appreciate chocolate in all its splendor you must try its many different forms.
Start with a Clean Palate
Human taste buds adapt to flavors very quickly. If you eat something sweet before eating chocolate, your taste buds become insensitive to sugary flavors so they won't respond as much to the sugar in the chocolate. The result is that the chocolate will taste bitter. Equally so, avoid taking anything bitter like coffee before chocolate. Your taste buds will overload on the earlier bitter experience and the chocolate may taste too sweet or have an weak overall flavor. The best thing to do is to drink something neutral, like hot water, shortly before eating chocolate to clean you palate of any lingering flavors. Another option is to eat one or two pieces of chocolate to condition your palate prior to the true tasting.
Eat Slowly
Because it's a solid, chocolate takes longer to be absorbed into taste buds. If it's chewed and quickly swallowed most of the flavor will be missed. Take your time, hold chocolate in the mouth and let it melt slowly. This will allow the maximum amount of flavor to be taken up by the palate.
Another reason to allow chocolate to melt on the palate is that one of the great pleasures chocolate provides is the sensuous texture it achieves as it comes up to body temperature.
Pay Attention
Good chocolate can be expensive so it makes sense to pay it the respect it deserves. Take your time and focus on trying to detect every flavor nuance it has to offer. Avoid eating chocolate while distractions can pull your attention away from it.
Another reason to focus on the chocolate as you eat it is that it is high in calories so you'll want to squeeze as much flavor as possible out of every calorie.
Think warm
At typical room temperatures of 70 degrees chocolate is a rigid solid. When eaten it takes considerable time to warm up and start to melt. Until that happens the flavor can't diffuse into your taste buds. It's also unpleasant to hold a hard cold lump in your mouth.
I pre-warm my milk chocolate by placing it on a heating pad set so that the temperature hovers around 84 degrees. That's warm enough to be soft but not too warm so that the chocolate sticks to the wrapping foil. At this temperature, the chocolate is the consistency of fudge and forms easily to match the contours of the palate. The flavor and textural impact is immediate and powerful.
Buy Good Chocolate
While the techniques mentioned above will help you derive more pleasure from any chocolate, applying them to the very best chocolate you can locate will significantly improve the overall enjoyment it provides.
By "good" I don't mean high-end artisanal chocolates or those produced by highly rated brands. Rather I mean the chocolate that tastes the best to you. Test as many as you can find and decide for yourself which you prefer.
Happy Eating!
