Top chocolate

When you’ve had the good stuff – when you’ve savored the intense, refined flavor of a premium piece of chocolate – it’s hard to go back to a plain old grocery-aisle candy bar.

Just ask Gina Garcia of Bittersweet Bakery and Bistro. For the Spokane dessert chef, most run-of-the-mill chocolate simply won’t do.

Give her, instead, a piece of dark chocolate from Chocolaterie Bernard Callebaut. Or a bite of a Vosges’ Red Fire bar – a fusion of Mexican ancho and chipotle chili peppers, Ceylon cinnamon and rich, dark chocolate.

So when she bakes, Garcia wouldn’t even consider a chocolate of inferior quality, she said. She uses only products from Guittard, a San Francisco company founded in 1868 by chocolatier Etienne Guittard.

“The quality of the flavor is far superior,” said Garcia, who orders most of her chocolate in hefty, 10-pound blocks. “I feel kind of spoiled, but I don’t use or eat Hershey.”

Garcia’s efforts to stick exclusively to premium chocolate would be applauded by Gary Guittard – not just because she bakes with his company’s chocolate, but also because he’s one of the people behind “Don’t Mess With Our Chocolate,” a grass-roots movement to preserve the purity of one of the world’s favorite foods.

Guittard, a fourth-generation crafter of fine chocolates, is leading the fight against a proposal before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to allow chocolate manufacturers to replace cocoa butter, the key ingredient in chocolate.

Earlier this year, the Grocery Manufacturers Association, with the support of the Chocolate Manufacturers of America, the Snack Food Association and other groups, filed a petition that would permit chocolate makers to substitute the cheaper ingredients of vegetable fats and oils for cocoa butter. Some companies already use these substitutes, but they can’t call their product “chocolate.”

The move has created a furor among chocolate aficionados. Keep it real, they say. Keep chocolate they way it is, don’t make “mockolate.”

If adopted, the proposal would alter the current “Gold Standard” for chocolate, Guittard said in a press release. It also would short-change the consumer, he emphasized, because it would cheapen the taste of chocolate.

Since the petition was filed, Guittard and others have urged people to speak out against the efforts to change the ingredients in chocolate. The deadline for the public to submit comments to the FDA is June 25.

“Chocolate is not just my business – it is my passion and these changes would lead the way to the manufacturing of something entirely different … that would not be the traditional chocolate that most of us know and love,” Guittard said. “No one can afford to sit back and eat bon-bons while America’s great passion for chocolate is threatened.”

Locally, the chocolate war hasn’t been as heated as in other cities, where Guittard and Cybele May of candyblog.net have been writing newspaper editorials and speaking out on the issue. Still, local chefs, vendors of fine chocolates and countless foodies remain fixated on the taste and quality of chocolate.

“People are extremely sophisticated and savvy about chocolate,” said Marta Johnson, owner of On My Own, a specialty chocolate boutique in downtown Spokane.

When customers visit her shop, they carefully read the labels and ask very specific questions about her offerings – from the percentage of cocoa in the bar, whether or not it’s fair trade and where the chocolate’s cacao beans were grown. Even their kids, some as young as 9, can recognize brands such as Dolfin, Scharffen Berger and other makers of fine chocolate, she said.

Since the Chocolate Apothecary opened in the Flour Mill 1 1/2 years ago, more than 200 people have taken a chocolate tasting class taught by owner Susan Davis. Hundreds more have stopped by to sample the more than 50 different kinds of chocolates offered at the shop and to ask questions about how they’re made and even why they each melt in a particular way.

“Chocolate is very much an art, as well as a science,” Davis said. “People enjoy the experience of tasting chocolate and learning what happens in the process between the bean and the bar.”

The proposal before the FDA likely won’t impact consumers of high-end chocolates, said Chef David Blaine of Latah Bistro, which offers up to 55 different kinds of specialty chocolate. It could, however, adversely affect cacao producers in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

“In an industry that is struggling to implement fair trade standards, this little bill could undermine the vitality of the supply chain just at the time when sales are soaring,” Blaine wrote last month in his blog, “From the Back Kitchen” (http://thebackkitchen.blogspot.com).

Blaine referred to a recent post on “grist,” a blog for environmental news and commentary (http://gristmill.grist.org), which discussed the connection between cacao-bean prices, sustainability and the political unrest in Cote d’Ivoire, a West African country and one of the world’s leading producers of cacao.

“Rock-bottom cocoa prices spelled robust profits for the chocolate giants – and a nightmare for growers,” wrote grist blogger, Tom Philpott. “Now, with cocoa prices up, the manufacturers are evidently seeking to maintain their profit margins by stretching the cocoa they buy as far as they can. Substituting cheap, heart-ruining hydrogenated fat for cocoa butter is one way to accomplish that.”

It’s important for people to pay careful attention to where their foods come from and the effects of their consumption, said Blaine, whose current favorites include Domori Chocolate from Italy and the fair-trade-certified Theo Chocolate from Seattle.

Chocolate, after all, is supposed to be good for you, according to several medical studies. In 2005, researchers found that the flavonols and antioxidants found in dark chocolate could have cardiovascular benefits, including lowering blood pressure. But, as Garcia pointed out, cheaper, lower-grade chocolates wouldn’t offer the same health benefits.

Blaine said he knows people who don’t blink an eye at spending $9 on a bar of high-end chocolate. “When it’s low-quality, the flavor doesn’t last so you end up eating more in quicker durations,” Blaine explained. But the taste of quality chocolate – even in small amounts – can linger in your mouth for as long as 15 minutes, he said.

And like wine, the flavors of these chocolates vary. Blaine and Garcia used descriptive words such as “earthy,” “woodsy,” “fruity,” “intense” and “bittersweet” to describe some of their favorite bars.

“All these discernible flavors – it’s amazing to me,” said Garcia, who incorporates chocolate into more a dozen desserts and a litany of pastries, cookies and bars at Bittersweet Bakery. “You don’t even have to understand the chemistry, you just have to eat it.”