Yesterday we took the students to the Marangoni Chocolate factory. It was a short bus ride outside the walls. The students were excited at the prospect of some free chocolate, which they got, but it was a very detailed explanation of the process before they got to that point. We began by understanding the plant itself, which grows only in the tropics. A single plant produces a very small amount of fruit/nuts, each of which only produces a very small amount of cacao. Plantations have to be massive to collect enough to be usable. As most of us already knew, the cacao itself is rather bitter. On the right is the unsweetend chocolate after the beans have been crushed and processed. There are three or four different varieties of cacao plants in the world, associated with the different regions. Chocolate connoisseurs can distinguish between the different varieties (Madagascaran versus Venezuelan, for example).


The pale yellow stuff on the table is the cacao butter that is extracted. Some of this is used in the production of chocolate bars, chips, etc - everything except the powder. It's the butter that holds the product together - at least in the higher quality stuff. Lecithen, soy and other stuff gets introduced into cheaper chocolate. The butter can be used in foods or cosmetics, so there's a market for it - which is why cheap chocolate uses less. Of course it's high quality fat - no cholesterol, so it has even more of a market.
We were also taught that chocolate should be examined by all the senses. Look at it to be sure it is a uniform color. Obviously you smell it. When you break a bar, it should make a crisp snapping sound (and you should further see that the break is a clean line, not jagged). As for the feel, there's a feel in the mouth of course, but you should also be able to take a small piece and rub it between your fingers until it melts, and the butter ought to coat the fingers. As for taste we were taught that if you do a tasting involving several chocolates, you should NOT use water or wine in between chocolates. Water won't cleanse the palate, and wine is too strong a flavor so it will mask the chocolate. Instead some hard liquor should be used, followed by a small sip of water to remove the alcohol taste.
Alfredo Marangoni then poured out some chocolate with toasted rice to make what was a chunchy chocolate bar. He explained that the chocolate takes about 10-15 minutes to cool but that to get the best flavor, it ought to be allowed to sit 5-8 hours before being eaten. He asked the students if they wanted to wait, and they all said "no," so he cut it into pieces for us. Here you see Ball Staters Audrey and John demonstrating the proper technique for eating the chocolate.

The paper published 2007 statistics that had been compiled locally. A couple of quick bits of info.

• Population has grown from 41,000 in 2001 to 43,000.
• There were 125 more deaths than births in 2007. Population growth can be accounted for by the 9 percent increase in immigrants.
• Seven percent of the population is 80 or older. Wow. I wonder how that compares to the rest of Italy, or to the US. I could do some research but won't.

More statistics next time.