Chocolates for Your Sweetie

For the Love of Beans

Have you ever cracked into a cacao pod? A gummy white mucilage shrouds its mysterious quarry. Indubitably the innards inspired The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It took an audacious cook to excavate the beans from the goo.

Native to the Americas, the equatorial fruit could pass for footballs on a Slim Fast diet. The first chocolatiers chopped the pods from the trees and plucked the seeds from the pods. Then they fermented, dried, roasted, shelled and ground them into a palatable pulp called cacahuatl – or chokolade, cioccolato, choklad, czekolada, schokolade, cokelat – the intoxicating magma that most of us crave. Thusly ancient Mesoamericans punted cacao pods into culinary lore.

By the time Columbus arrived, a chocolate frenzy was soaring in Mexico. But it took those marauding Spanish Conquistadores, Hernan Cortez and his plundering pals, to see what the excitement was about. Rumor has it that Montezuma, the last Aztec emperor, drank 50 flagons of chocolate daily to sustain nocturnal flings with his sizable harem. And for a wealthy Aztecan, nine raw beans could hire a lady of the night. Such auspicious gossip launched the amorous mythology of xocoatl, food of the Gods.

These are the beginnings of chocolate's recorded history as it morphed from an acrid aphrodisiac to your Valentine's sweet treat. You see, cocoa beans are very bitter and King Monte cut the flavor with hot peppers and spices. Sugar cane had not yet arrived in the New World.

Thank the invaders for that. Then credit the nuns, those pious Catholics missionaries, for adding the sweetener. Convents in Colonial Mexico were renowned for their creative cooking and gourmand feasts. The instant the sisters spooned sugar into hot chocolate, they went cuckoo for cocoa. But their boss – the pope – determined this invention to be too evocative for a nunnery, inappropriate for ladies wedded to chastity. So then and there, temptation, seduction, addiction, and indulgence started coalescing with cacao.

By now the word – and taste – had gotten around. Cortez had taken it back to the Spanish court where they kept it a royal secret for almost a hundred years. When Spanish chocoholic Infanta Anne married King Louis XIII, the French got their royal hands on it. By the mid 1600's, copious courtly trysts at Versailles made chocolat an objet de desire.

Later, legendary Italian lover, Giovanni Casanova, did his bit: He lured the lassies with little nibbles. He called the confection "the quintessence of love." Hence today we have that convergence of love tokens and Hershey Kisses.

Good Chemistry

Beware. Don't let scientists spoil it for you. The savory satin swaddling your tastebuds and senses – they say – is not what makes chocolate sexy. It's the chocolate love drugs, the very same as our body chemicals: phenyiethylaminethe sexcites passion, tryptophan fuels sexuberance, and anandamide stokes sexhilaration. What more do we need to know? Suffice to say, they all make up the neuroFedEx that delivers Valentines from our head to the heart and other nether parts of our torso. Or so they claim.

Beyond the mundane historic and scientific twinings of love and chocolate, cacao has been enshrined as manna from the gods. Geronimo Piperni said it best back in 1796. "Chocolate is celestial food, the sweat of the stars, the vital seed, divine nectar, drink of deities, panacea and universal medicine."

Miles of Chocolate

Piperni's prescient ex cathedra dictum is even more true today. With the proliferation of epicurean recipes, designer bonbons and melliferous movies, chocolate continues to provide a little bit of Heaven for us mere mortals – ambrosia for the body, elixir for the soul.

Chocolate Cinema

What better way to warm up on a chilly winter night than to whip up a steaming cup of thick hot chocolate, turn on the HDTV and snuggle in with your loved one for a cozy Valentine's evening.

No surprise that the two best romantic movies about chocolate should come from Mexico and France, each directed by stellar craftsman: Alonso Arau and Lasse Hallstrom. Directors Tim Burton and Mel Stuart contribute their considerable skills to two family flicks.

Like Water for Chocolate (1993) is a fable/tale about a young woman (Lumi Cavazos) who infuses her addictive cooking with emotions. Those who partake are infected with her feelings. With the ups and downs of a family drama and a forbidden love, their stomachs are in for roller coaster ride. The award winning movie was one of the most popular imports of the last century.

Chocolat (2000), with five Academy Award nominations, stars Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp. Binoche (Vianne Rocher) opens a chocolate shop in a very provincial French town. She woos the skeptical townsfolk – and the dashing drifter Mr. Depp – with her charm and delectable pastries. It's a delicious little movie.

If Valentine's Day in your house means dining at home with the kids, two mocha movies satiate the sweet tooth. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, (2005) another Johnny Depp film, helmed by Tim Burton, has enough whimsy and chocolate to satisfy all ages. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the original version, a musical comedy starring Gene Wilder, garnered plenty of awards and fans in its time (1971).

Mexican Hot Chocolate

In honor of Montezuma, this addictive recipe is inspired by a traditional Mexican hot chocolate.

Take a bar of your favorite bittersweet chocolate. Or use a good European brand like Callebaut, Valrhona or Lindt. Don't economize here.

TOOLS

INGREDIENTS

Optional
Cinnamon sticks for garnish and stirring
For the Mexican touch, a pinch of ancho chile powder
Or 2 tablespoons of Crème de Cacao, Kalua or Amaretto liqueur
Even try a small pinch of salt

DIRECTIONS

1. Chisel away at the chocolate bars and put aside. The smaller the pieces, the faster they melt.

2. Over a low fire, begin heating the milk and sugar.

3. Blend the almonds to smithereens, and stir into the heating milk mixture.

4. Mix in the chocolate. As it burns easily, keep stirring until the chocolate and sugar melt. Look for the gurgling bubbles accumulating at the edge of the pan. Remove from the burner before the milk boils and erupts all over the stove. The chocolate will continue to dissolve off the fire.

5. Add the vanilla and almond extract, (liqueur, chile pepper and/or salt if you want).

6. When the chocolate is totally hot and melted, take the egg whip and beat the bejaises out of it. You want it frothy and feathery light.

7. Ladle into big soup cups and insert the cinnamon stirring stick.

8. It's now time to grab the remote, hug your mug, turn down the lights and cuddle with your sweetheart.

Good news NOTES:

Happy Valentine's Day

If the four chocolate movies don't catch your fancy, check out the more extensive selection from last Valentine's An Affair to Remember.