American Chocholate

Chocolate is a product made from cocoa beans and other ingredients. It was only made possible by industrial manufacturing technology. The drink made from cocoa beans and water by the Aztecs and introduced to Europe after the Spanish occupation was a primitive concoction that might be derisively called cocoa bean soup, but which nonetheless had enough flavor, theobroma and caffeine to inspire tireless experiments into its refining and concentration.

Today the word "chocolate" has two meanings. In the consumer market it refers to any confection whose most important ingredient is some part of the cocoa bean, usually those that are edible (and therefore contain a healthy dose of sugar) but also including baking chocolate.

But to a chocolatier (a person who makes the aforementioned confections) and for the purposes of this discussion, as defined by the introductory question, "chocolate" is the raw material the chocolatier works with. This is an industrially manufactured substance "whose most important ingredient is some part of the cocoa bean." The cocoa beans are pulverized and heated and the cocoa butter and cocoa solids are refined out of them. The cocoa butter and cocoa solids are then blended in a specific proportion and combined with sugar. An emulsifier, usually lecithin, is also used. Milk is added to make "milk chocolate." The factories whose products are regarded as reference standards stop there, but other flavorings can be added.

Turning this combination of chemicals into a solid with the desired density, texture and flavor is a delicate engineering feat of timing, temperature and stirring.

The route of cocoa beans was the opposite of coffee beans: they originated in the Americas and were introduced to Africa, and are now grown commercially in many regions. But like coffee beans they come in many varieties, each with its own subtle difference in composition that can make a profound difference in flavor.

The "chocolate" produced by these factories in bricks weighing several kilos is edible straight off of the assembly line and is what you get if you buy a "plain" chocolate bar. The difference from one to another is primarily a matter of two vectors.

One is the choice of beans. Like coffee beans, tea leaves, wine grapes, or any other foodstuff whose primary purpose is not nutritional, remarkable differences in flavor occur in various types or mixtures and each has its own devotees.

The other is the percentage of cocoa in the mix. The more cocoa, the "darker" or more "bittersweet" the chocolate. Generally the product must be at least 50% cocoa to be called dark or bittersweet, but purists sniff at anything much below 70%. Milk chocolate is so low that the percentage is not listed.

Varying the proportion of cocoa butter to cocoa solids will also have an impact on the results, but I have never encountered any information on this part of the process.

White chocolate is a special case, it has only cocoa butter with no cocoa solids and therefore lacks caffeine as well as the typical chocolate color, and tastes "like chocolate" but not "like chocolate." It has a higher melting point than cocoa solids and makes a good summer candy.

This is the stuff that is called French chocolate, Swiss chocolate, Belgian chocolate, Venezuelan chocolate, Ecuadorian chocolate, or American chocolate. The name refers to the country where this raw ingredient is manufactured. Several other countries have chocolate factories, I've only listed the ones generally acknowledged to produce at least one brand of reference-standard quality chocolate.

This is the raw material that chocolatiers or candy factories use to make the candy you buy in the store--unless you buy the pure bars from the original factory.

Making this candy is not easy. You have to take the original chocolate from the factory and melt it carefully in a "tempering machine," which stirs it and aligns it into a crystalline structure, which you then pour over your centers in molds, spoon over truffles and larger pieces like Easter eggs, or keep liquid to use as a ganache.

So if you buy a chocolate candy bar in an American shop, you can be getting one of several things. If it's a precious 100-gram ingot of pure chocolate from a gourmet shop it is probably French or another European chocolate, or perhaps one of the fine South American factories. But it might be America's Scharffen Berger, which is also a premium European-style chocolate.

If it's a candy bar or a bag of candies with nuts, nougat, soft centers, etc., it's most likely made from American chocolate, usually Hershey's or Ghirardelli. This is the stuff you guys are asking about, which tastes like plastic to someone accustomed to European chocolate. Obviously if it's Tobler, Lindt, or one of the expensive European candy bars then it's the exception and contains European chocolate.

The American chocolatiers with their own chains of shops, like Godiva, Fannie May and Mrs. See's, also use American chocolate.

If you go to a specialty shop where somebody is in the back with their own chocolate tempering machine and uses verbs like "enrobing," like Jacques Torres in New York or Sjaak in California, they probably use one of the great French or other European chocolates.

So when you ask about "American chocolate," you really mean "American candy." If you just bought it here it might be imported but most of the stuff on the racks is made from American raw material. If it was made here commercially it was probably also made from this stuff. If it was made by a specialty chocolatier, they probably used imported material.

The stuff you're referring to is the candy made from chocolate manufactured in America.

 

Huh? I've seen places like that. The fountain pours chocolate syrup. It may be just a decoration or it may be a giant fondue for dipping fruit. I've seen chocolate models that were 2 feet tall. You make a mold of the two sides of the object, then pour in enough chocolate to harden and make two half shells. Then the tricky part is joining them together so the joint isn't ugly. The Costco over by the Pentagon has a resident chocolatier. He makes large chocolate models of the Pentagon, the White House, etc.