Chocolate Museum

Last Sunday (a week ago from today) we all went on a trip to the Chocolate Museum (more specifically, the Museum of Cocoa & Chocolate), which is located just off Grand Place. The museum was not large, but it had the important stuff: chocolate samples, and darn good ones at that. At the entrance we got tasty biscuits fresh dipped in chocolate. A little further in, we got a demonstration of how chocolate shells are made—hollow pieces of chocolate, which either get a filling, like your typical chocolate bon bon; or don't, like hollow chocolate Easter bunnies—and we got to sample those too. All samples tasted outstanding.

There were exhibits showing where the cocoa beans come from, and something of how they are processed. I learned that on average Belgians eat somewhat over 11kg of chocolate per year—slightly behind Germans and Swiss, but twice what Americans eat (5.6kg). But if Americans had the quality of chocolate available to them that we have here in Belgium, I'll bet Americans would catch up quick!

The evening before our visit to the Chocolate Museum, Naomi and I dined at the home of one of her colleagues. They served us two varieties of straight, dark chocolate. The chocolate was extraordinarily flavorful, and the flavor had more than one "round." They said better chocolates have after-taste, and the best have multiple waves of after-taste. In this particular case, the more after-taste the chocolate had, the more I wanted the after-taste to stop! There was increasing bitterness with the after-taste, and while I can appreciate intellectually that all this flavor points to a technically superior chocolate, I'm just a simple guy, and I guess I like my chocolate simply good.