NEW YORK—In what has become an unofficial festive start to the holiday season, the 12th Annual Chocolate Show New York City was held this past weekend at the Metropolitan Pavilion, delighting those attending the show with new and innovative takes on chocolate and confections.
Friday’s Chocolate Fashion Show featured models wearing haute couture dresses and accessories made entirely from chocolate. The KidZone featured storytelling and hands-on chocolate-making for the younger chocolate connoisseurs.
The Viking Culinary Theatre hosted master chocolate-making classes and demonstrations from such luminaries in the pastry world as Francois Payard and Jacques Torres, and local favorites Billy’s Bakery and Peanut Butter and Company.
This year’s show featured the usual single-source chocolates from Colombia and Venezuela, and top-of-the-line baking chocolate from Guittard, but Chocolate Show always brings New Yorkers the newest tastes and twists, and this year was no different.
Milk chocolate is usually made from cow’s milk, but Al-Nassma of Dubai adds the desert touch to their Camel’s Milk Chocolate. The confections come in the form of a caravan of tiny chocolate camels in a long box made of luxurious acacia wood, or golden foil-wrapped hollow camels, as well as traditional boxes of square pralines filled with pistachio and hazelnut creams.
Al-Nassma’s confections have a minimum of 31 percent cocoa powder content and a lovely, smooth taste accented by top-quality ingredients such as Trabzon Turkish hazelnuts, Bourbon vanilla, acacia honey, and rich, whole camel’s milk, which reportedly is rich in vitamins and minerals.
One of the more unusual taste trends at this year’s Chocolate Show was the seemingly odd combination of bacon and chocolate. At Roni-Sue’s Chocolates of Essex Street Market here in New York City, chef Rhonda Kave simply dips crispy bacon slices into milk or dark chocolate and breaks the coated slices into pieces to form bags of her unique “Pig Candy,” which tastes straightforwardly smooth, sweet, and salty all at once, and is surprisingly pleasing to the palate.
But Christopher Michael Chocolatiere’s “Sizzling Bacon Bar” elevates the combination to an entirely gourmet level. The bar is made with Venezuelan milk chocolate with a high cocoa content (41 percent) and Pop Rocks swirled in along with bacon bits and sea salt. The taste of this bar begins with the sweet chocolate melting on the tongue, then a slight sourness, a pleasant salty and fizzy sensation, and finally the pure taste of the perfect bacon slice.
The layering effect of all four tastes is exceptionally satisfying. Michael says his inspiration for his Sizzling Bacon Bar came from growing up in Minnesota and eating chocolate-covered bacon at the State Fair. He says he took the taste he grew up with and took it to a more delicately delicious level.
At Le Chef Patissier, the sweet and salty theme continued with the Fleur de Sel Caramels. Suitably buttery and demi-sweet with a tender salty finish, these perfectly smooth dollops made of nothing more than sugar, butter, and vanilla envelop small grains of pure sea salt and melt pleasingly in the mouth, while giving a satisfying chewiness and fully rounded feel. Le Chef Patissier also offered a smooth yet slightly crumbly traditional dark chocolate truffle dusted with bittersweet cocoa powder.
This year’s Chocolate Show contributed to Share Our Strength, a charity that fights to end childhood hunger in America. The Chocolate Show New York City is the only U.S. stop on the worldwide 12th Annual Salon du Chocolat Tour, founded by Sylvie Douce and Francois Jeantet.
In 2010, Chocolate Shows will be held in Moscow, Shanghai, Cairo, and Tokyo. Information on future show dates and products mentioned in this article can be found at www.chocolateshow.com.
Cynthia Leathers is a New York City writer who reports on pet shows and special events for The Epoch Times.
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