This week we went to the Le Musée Gourmand Du Chocolat, where we not only toured the museum, but we also participated in a workshop where we learned (hands-on!) part of how chocolate is made. The museum was very thorough, beginning with how cocoa beans were used by indigenous Americans for making drinks and even trading as currency. What we learned about the purported health benefits of chocolate from the museum tied into what we learned in class about cocoa flavanols’ potential ability to sharpen our brains’ function. An article we discussed this week at length and wrote a review article on provided evidence that cocoa flavanols “enhance the efficiency of spatial attention” (Karabay, Saija, Field, & Akyürek 2018). Therefore, chocolate may not only be good for our taste buds, but also our brains!
The chocolate workshop was really interesting because the chef at the museum that ran our workshop taught us a lot about how different beans are selected for different flavors, how beans are prepared to make different kinds of chocolate, and how different fillings are added to create various chocolatey delights.
Moreover, the chef taught us about how different temperatures and conditions can radically alter the appearance, taste, and texture of chocolate, and it was amazing to see how much science goes into the production of one of the world’s favorite food products. The level of scientific rigor (and reverent passion) in the chocolate-making process reminded me of what we learned about the cheese-making process a couple weeks ago and was quite inspiring.
Between this visit and our visit to the fromagerie(cheese shop), it was very interesting to see the level of pride the French have in their food products, as well as the respect they have for the process of both creating and enjoying food. In the United States, it seems that food is consumed quickly and without much thought. In France, food is an experience, inherently social and involving all the senses. Therefore, through these two experiences, I was able to greatly enhance my ability to appreciate the nuances of the food I enjoy, as well as gain an appreciation for the cultural differences between my home country and France. I look forward to bringing some of my new knowledge home to share with my family, and hope that I can bring a little bit of the French attitude towards food to my daily life in the US when I return.
References
Karabay, A., Saija, J. D., Field, D. T., & Akyürek, E. G. (2018). The acute effects of cocoa flavanols on temporal and spatial attention. Psychopharmacology, 235,1497–1511. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-018-4861-4