I attended my second Slow Food event last night. This one was called “Chocolate and peppers”. The first thing that had come to my mind when I heard of the theme was a line in the movie “Chocolat” where the chocolate maker talks about a confection she made using hot peppers and chocolate. At the time I remember thinking that it was a funny fantasy and nothing more. After all I had once served oranges and pepper, and strawberries with pepper also. But this had been regular black pepper while this time we are talking about the red hot peppers (as in chili peppers). In french we have separate words: poivre and piment but it seems the English language is not as detailed.
It was an interesting evening, the speakers were more fun than the food. . But I feel that just like for oysters or wine, you need to educate your palate before you can truly appreciate the subtleties of these two ingredients.
We were told about the South American origins of chocolate and how the Mayans were the first to create a drink from crushed cocoa beans mixed with water and flavorings such as chili peppers, vanilla, and other spices to make a sacred drink (a bit like mass wine for the Catholics). We were taught how the pods grow on the bark of trees and do not hang from it like apples and that the bean must ferment and be roasted before it can taste of anything. Makes you wonder how all this was discovered …but that’s a totally different topic…
I would have liked to learn more about the different varieties of chocolate available, but we were not given much info except to be told that Chuau is an exceptional chocolate and that Tanzani chocolate is also wonderful as are Chocolat Barri, Toscano and Amadei. Of course we are talking 70% cocoa and up. I guess they figured that everyone there already knew all about cocoa content.
We also learned that eating hot peppers releases endorphins, like running and sex…It seems your mouth sends out a “fire” message to the brain, which releases the emergency hormone which then flows through your blood stream .
We were told that there are 5 varieties of hot peppers and that the “fire” comes from an oil called capsaicin. It seems that peppers have little smell and are mostly experienced through taste. I could not really tell them apart except by the intensity of the “fire” but I did notice that the chipolte has a more smoky flavor. We also found out that water is not a good idea to put out the fire from a hot pepper. Bread dipped in a good olive oil or rice or even potatoes are a more effective solution… because of that oil and water reaction…
The menu was…unusual: we started with a rather peppery squash soup that had chocolate sprinkled over it. The next course was chocolate turkey (or chicken) and dessert was a delicious chocolate pie served with a chocolate and pepper sherbet. The meal was accompanied with very good wines: a bubbly to start, a sherry type followed, then a wonderfiul red called: “Roche dei Manzoni, Bricco, Langue 1998”, and we finished with a golden elixir from Domaine De Rancy.
We were also given the prettiest and most delicious pepper chocolates at the end.
