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I ask because sooner or later (probably sooner) one has to repair such a machine. Hilliards, for example, has a good reputation for product support and ease of repair, important considerations when one is spending money on new equipment. If I get a Smith and something needs replacing...then what?
"We don't just melt other people's chocolates."
The sentiment is a fair one, but it's so often expressed poorly. There are certainly professionals who "just" melt other peoples' chocolates. These are not the fondeurs; they are the bad fondeurs. The lazy, the opportunistic, or simply the rustic and innocent. Ma & pa candy shops in seaside resort towns "just" melt down other peoples' chocolates; so do large companies that fall over themselves to tell you how refined they are. We've probably all amused ourselves with the story of Noka. Bad fondeurs.
To lump all chocolatiers together as people who just make candy with other people's chocolate is unfair. Do you put Robert Linxe in the same class as Lake Champlain? Jacques Genin and Godiva? There is definitely a difference. Starting with fine chocolate is key; starting with a variety of fine chocolates is equally important. The bigger the palette, the more room for expression. Even leaving out the rest of the process, these two provisions are enough to separate a handful of good chocolatiers from the mediocre majority. Curious that an artisan chocolate maker will go to such lengths to differentiate their process--sourcing directly from small growers, manufacturing small batches in a hands-on fashion to preserve flavor, etc.--and then fail to make the same distinctions for their colleagues on the other side of the fence. It's like a small chocolatier saying "unlike those larger bean-to-bar operations, who only make chocolate-flavored chocolate, we put a dozen flavors in every box". Pretty weak argument.
A good fondeur's work is the same as that of a good chocolate maker, or for that matter, a good chef: create surpassing flavors and textures; create a sensory experience to delight the consumer. A fondeur doesn't make his own couverture, a chef doesn't raise his own cattle, and (in most cases) a chocolate maker doesn't grow his own beans. Having spent some time on both sides of the chocolate industry, I'll vouch that making chocolate is no more or less difficult than making chocolate bonbons. In both fields, it's much easier to make a passable product than to make one that excels. If the artisan chooses to settle for nothing less than the best; s/he is charged with synthesizing numerous base ingredients into something profound and unique. The chocolate maker handles ingredients with larger equipment, and needs a certain understanding of how to employ complex machinery to get very specific results. The chocolatier works with smaller, simpler tools, and employs a certain physical coordination to get very specific results. Both require a deep knowledge of the chemistry and physics at work, and an intuitive understanding of the raw materials and their potential.
Chocolate makers, of course, use fewer ingredients. Many are fond of pointing out the "purity" of their product and its flavor. They like to point out all the things they don't add. Well, of course fine chocolate really shouldn't contain cocoa butter substitutes or vanillin, so more power to you there. But the notion of "pure" chocolate is artificial. Pure chocolate doesn't exist, as chocolate is not found in nature. Once a cacao bean has been fermented, it's essentially a product of human technology. Everything that happens from then on is craftsmanship, and adding soy lecithin or vanilla beans is as valid a choice as drying and roasting. I've had very "pure" chocolate bars that I wouldn't wish on anyone--the only meaningful standard is how a chocolate feels and tastes in your mouth. Everything else is just marketing.
Marketing. I certainly understand why a company needs to differentiate itself from others in their field. Even on a very broad level, however, a chocolate makers' competitors are other chocolate makers, not the chocolatiers. Dismissing the craft of the fondeur in half a sentence is unnecessary and is, in fact, a thinly veiled insult to the chocolate masters of the world. The two sides of artisanal chocolate really have a great deal in common, yet they are frequently treated as different worlds. Surely we would benefit from a little more unity.
http://www.davidlebovitz.com/tours.html
(note that he is not currently giving private tours but he is doing aweek-long, small group "Paris Chocolate Adventure")
In 2003 my wife and I made our own chocolate wedding cake from a recipe from David's book "Room for Dessert." In 2005 I had an exhibition in Paris and in our research on where to go we came across his tour so wedecided to splurge.
We opted for a half day tour and my mom joined us. I had been in the catacombs literally all night long so I was less than fully lucid but Imanaged to power through with the help of some theobromine. My wife wasactually 2 weeks pregnant at the time so she was also not feeling 100%.We could have been grumpy and tired but instead it was a real highlightof our trip.
Overall we loved it. David is very knowledgeable. The tour basically leads from store to store where most of out purchases were for later. Asis common in Paris there are few free samples and the focus was not onleading us through tastings themselves. Perhaps he could do that too ifasked - he was very flexible and modified the tour as we went along andhe learned our experience and preferences. We saw more than we expectedin terms of the number of sites we were able to visit. David was veryconsiderate and well organised. A couple times he took us on buses(safer and cleaner than the subway) which allowed him to discuss pointsof interest on the streets along the way. He often peppered the historyand cultural information about chocolate with fun gossip about thepolitics behind some of the personalities involved - especially with thesmaller stores. David is not shy about sharing insider industry news andhe had stories about many cookbooks or chefs we chatted about.
I can't remember all the places we visited but here's a few highlights.
We started at Ladure and learned a bit about its long history. Then we visited Debauve & Gallais - the oldest chocolate store in paris (since1800) where we bought a few dark bars that became our favorite. Byfavorite I mean all-time-five-star-I'd-even-pay-ten-bucks-for-this favorite.
Jean-Charles Rochoux is a friend of his so we got some samples out of his store.
Sadaharu Aoki - added based on our conversation - great matcha chocolate.
We stopped at a kitchen supply store with chocolate preparation equipment.
We omitted a couple key tour places we had been before such as Jean-Paul Hevin and Pierre Herme.
We had some important discussions about chocolate croissants and David pointed us to a few to try. Ladure's featured hazelnut and became ourfavorite. Fachoun was great too.
I was also interested in cheese so we ended our tour at Le Bon Marche. I embarrassed him by asking him to get cheese samples which is not oftendone in Paris. But he came through for me. He left us there with apointer to the chocolate tarts upstairs in their cafe. Over tarts andtea I pleasantly fell into an exhausted, overcaffinated andsleep-deprived happy stupor.
The Good Inside Cocoa Programme, established by the Dutch non-profit organisation Utz Certified, aims to eliminate environmental and humanitarian problems such as child labour, deforestation and low salaries.
Asconsumer and regulatory concern over working conditions in Africaincreases, manufacturers can no longer ignore the responsibility theyhave towards some of the poorest workers in the world. Ona purely business level, Western firms are indeed conscious thatprotecting supply from the Ivory Cost and Ghana - which togetheraccount for 65 per cent of the world's net cocoa - is vital ...
Read the press release . (nutraingedients-usa.com)
Remember E=mc, the beautiful little formula that wrapped up the theory of relativity? Well 'c' is the speed of light. And you can measure it. With chocolate. All you need is a microwave, a ruler (a metric version if you have one), a calculator (if your math skills are a little rusty and you don't trust them), and a bar of chocolate - cheap chocolate that you wouldn't eat because you're going to offer it up on the alter of science and it probably won't be edible when you're done..
Click to mosey on over to Null Hypothesis - the on-line "Journal of Unlikely Science" - to learn how.