Part 2: Fact Checking Georg Bernardini's "Chocolate - The Reference Standard"
Posted in:
Opinion
Norbert:
Georg clearly states in his book that he will not likely publish an update to it, something he also told me in person when we met in Amsterdam at the Origin Chocolate event. Therefore I saw no point in contacting Georg privately by email.
Besides, you have to wait until p855 in the Acknowledgements section to learn that he wants readers to contact him, and the email address. I did not discover that bit of info until today.
Also, I felt that the flaws I saw in the book needed to be made public so that people could approach it critically, knowing that there were many factual errors. If I contacted Georg privately I had no way of knowing if my concerns would be made public - and based on his response to the first part of my review, I am fairly confident they would never have seen the light of day.
Another reason to go public is that because Georg is now making chocolate under his own brand he cannot, in good faith and conscience, even think about working on an update to the book as it represents a direct conflict of interest.
I am glad you find the book very useful, even with the flaws I point out. I know that others find it useful, too. I also know from speaking with native-German speakers that many of the flaws I found in the book are in the German-language version and that there is controversy in Germany over the book - not everyone feels as you do about it.
Most of the people I have spoken with who feel the way you do have not closely read any part of it, including the reviews. But, if they read the front matter and the back matter closely they would treat the reviews differently. I am not so concerned about the reviews, except where Georg is not consistent with his own stated editorial policies.
As for Hoja Verde ... I have been in touch with Jose and Eduardo in Ecuador by email and saw Jolanda in Amsterdam -- were you there? I was told you would be. If so, we did not connect and I am sad we did not get the chance to talk about this in person. I don't need to consider what brands are and are not known in Europe, I am concerned with how brands are represented (and not) in the book.
And - you are wrong when you say that only Criollo and Nacional survive as 'true genetic types'. All true Criollos have a genome with 420,000,000 base pairs. All Forasteros have a genome with 440,000,000 base pairs. All Nacionals are gentically Foresteros. Really. That's what the DNA says.
[Feb 11 - edited for typos and clarity]
updated by @Clay Gordon: 02/11/16 17:02:20