Читать книгу Chocolate Busters: The Easy Way to Kick It! - Jason Vale, Jason Vale - Страница 27

I mentioned at the start that in order to break free from chocolate you will need an extremely open mind. Well, if you can I need you to open your mind even wider for this next revelation – CHOCOLATE TASTES DISGUSTING! Now hang on, before you throw the book in the bin, thinking I’m a few Cadbury’s Buttons short of a full jacket, please hear me out. I’m not saying for one second that you don’t like the taste of your favourite brand of chocolate, because clearly you do, but what I am saying is that chocolate, in its unsweetened state is about as appealing on the taste front as a clip around the ear with a wet kipper. Actually, it’s much worse than that. I don’t know if you’ve ever had the misfortune to taste unsweetened cocoa, but trust me it’s just not worth it! While researching for this book I made the somewhat catastrophic mistake of getting Cadbury to send me some unsweetened cocoa beans. I decided to conduct my own taste survey amongst my friends – well, when I say friends, after my little experiment they may be ex-friends! I managed to convince 20 people, many of whom describe themselves as ‘chocolate lovers’, to try these not-so-tasty treats. The results were pretty conclusive – 95% of the people surveyed spat out the bean and were nearly physically sick. There was only one person who managed to eat and swallow it, but even then she thought it tasted like crap.

If you’re in any doubt at all and think I may be exaggerating for effect, please pop along to Cadbury World and ask them if you can taste one of their ‘unsweetened’ cocoa beans (oh, and don’t forget your bucket!). Or if you can’t make it there, go on the hunt for some high percentage cocoa chocolate. Now when I say high percentage, I’m not talking 70% dark chocolate bars – these have still been heavily sweetened with sugar – no, I’m talking 95–99% chocolate solids (once again make sure there’s a toilet near by). This is because, as I will continue to say, chocolate in its unsweetened state is revolting. Actually, revolting is being rather nice! As I write this chapter I’ve just had another unsweetened cocoa bean to fully associate with what I’m trying to get across – and what I have just tasted is almost indescribable and in my mind I’ve only ever tasted one other thing which is worse. Have you ever woken up from a party and felt so thirsty that you reached for the nearest can of whatever to quench your thirst, only to discover (too late) it contained cigarette ash? Well, that’s what we’re talking about here!

The main ingredient which causes the foul taste is a naturally occurring powerful heart stimulant called theobromine. Theobromine is incredibly bitter and the darker the chocolate, the more ‘real chocolate’ it contains and the worse it tastes. Our taste buds are designed to warn us of poisons – if something tastes bitter it usually means that nature never intended us to eat it. Chocolate has always tasted as bitter as a winter’s night in Scotland and has always been sweetened to make it palatable. When the Aztec civilizations of Central America first started using chocolate a couple of thousand years ago (depending on what you read!) it was nothing like the chocolate we get today. Firstly, they only drank it, the chocolate ‘bar’ only came in around 1847 when Joseph Fry (as in Fry’s Chocolate) discovered that by adding chocolate liquor and sugar to cocoa butter he could produce a solid chocolate. And the drinking chocolate they had then was certainly a few chemicals and spoonfuls of sugar short of the hot cocoa your parents used to tuck you up in bed with, that’s for sure. Back then the drink was extremely bitter and spicy, thickened with maize and flavoured with vanilla, ginger and even chilli and turmeric (yum, yum!). But the Aztecs didn’t go to all this trouble because they thought drinking it helped with the stresses and strains of life or because they thought it was something they could ‘have in-between meals without ruining their appetite’ or because they thought it tasted good! No, they only started drinking it because they thought they were honouring their principle God, Quetzalcoatl-Tlahuizcalpanticutli (the God of light), in much the same way some Christians take bread and wine at communion, the Aztecs honestly thought the pods were gifts from God, hence their naming the cocoa the food of the Gods’. The name of the tree from which the beans come from is Theobroma cacao, which literally translates as ‘god food’.