I was in San Francisco at the Fancy Food Show when I received a call from the program director of the Barnard College Alumnae Association. She was calling to get last-minute confirmation of details for the tasting we’d been discussing and to let me know how many people to expect. I also received a proverbial bombshell: Three of the people who were going to be in attendance kept Kosher.

Event Date: January 28, 2003

Needless to say, this would change my entire approach to the tasting. I had never really thought about Kosher chocolate and, as far as I knew Kosher chocolate was a lot like Kosher wine was until only very recently—you’d never find “gourmet” and “kosher chocolate” in the same sentence. However, I knew that I could not do two different tastings aimed at different members of the same audience simultaneously: I had no choice but to do tasting of “gourmet Kosher chocolate” for the entire group, about 45 people.

At least I had a few days’ notice to do the research. Unfortunately, I got the call the morning after the Fancy Food Show ended. And more to the point, I was in a #### room at the end of a 24.4 dial-up connection. Very slow and unreliable so surfing the web was not really something I was looking forward to.

As a first stroke of luck, this was the morning I had planned to visit the Scharffen Berger chocolate factory where I learned that their production is Kosher. I purchased both 62% and 70% 5gr tasting squares to carry back with me on the plane.

Back in my office the next morning, I did a quick search on Kosher chocolate and “discovered” Max Brenner. I was aware of the name, of course, but did not know that the chocolate he produced was Kosher. I took a quick look at the distributor’s website—chocosphere.com—and found a number of products that would suit my needs. A quick call to Chocosphere to check on availability and freshness (Max Brenner sold the business a couple of years ago and there were rumors of persistent problems with product quality since the sale) and the chocolate—newly arrvied from Israel—was on the way in time to show up for the tasting.

Now, all I needed to figure out was how to serve the chocolate because the rules for Kosher can be very strict and I had no idea how observant my guests were going to be. A few e-mails to some Usenet newsgroup lists got me the answers I needed.

I brought the chocolate to the venue and prepared as many servings as I could, leaving one of each package unopened. I also had paper plates and plastic knives, which I left unopened, too. One of the organizers of the event kept Kosher and she looked at all of the packages and pronounced them acceptable and that the people in attendance would take her word that they would be acceptable, at which point I prepared all of the rest of the plates. The research into how to do a Kosher tasting was itself was quite fascinating ... the only thing that lay in front of me was the tasting itself ... using chocolate I had never tasted before.

In addition to the two Scharffen Berger squares, the Max Brenner chocolate for the tasting consisted of assorted pralines, Chicaos (tuiles (thin chocolate disks) with cocoa nibs), and a 70% single-origin Venezuelan. While people were waiting for the tasting to start they sampled Prosecco, a light sparkling Italian wine, or a Kosher cabernet. Sparkling water was available during the tasting as a palate cleanser.

I started the tasting with the Max Brenner pralines. Why pralines to start? It has been my experience that you want to give people a substantial piece of chocolate to eat right at the start that will (hopefully) take the edge off their craving. After all, I was going to spending some time talking about the history of chocolate and about chocolate production and I didn’t want my guests to clean their plates before starting in on the tasting proper.

The Max Brenner pralines were quite well made with good clean tastes, and clean finishes. The enrobings were also well balanced with the centers. The one off-putting note was that I got a whiff/taste of the ink used in the box printing as I put the pralines into my mouth. This tells me that even though the chocolates were still in the “best if eaten before” period, they’d definitely been in the box too long or they’d got too warm at some point. However, it was very faint, and none of the guests was able to detect it.

One of the Chicaos was a 40% milk chocolate. The Ecuadorian cocoa nibs were a nice touch adding crunch and a taste of chocolate essence, but the milk chocolate was sort of bland (actually too milk-y even at that high cocoa content). The 60% dark Chicao was far more interesting and the chocolate was nicely enhanced by the presence of the cocoa nibs. These items look hand made as the size varies greatly. An aside to cost-conscious shoppers; the number of Chicaos in each tin (which itself might make a nice collectible) is actually quite small.

We did a direct comparative tasting of the 70% Scharffen Berger (4-bean blend) and the 70% Max Brenner (single-origin Venezuelan). The overwhelming favorite was the Max Brenner, which had a much creamier texture, and a softer, less acidic taste with less astringency (also a better crack and aroma) than the Scharffen Berger. The 70% Max Brenner would make a great choice for an every day eating chocolate, kosher or no.

Overall, the group liked the 62% Scharffen Berger better than the 70%. The 62% is a 9-bean blend and that complexity makes it more interesting, which may be the reason.

Afterwards, for people who wanted to stay behind and taste some non-Kosher chocolate, I had some El Rey Icoa, a Cluizel Nuancier Pures Origines (what I had originally intended to use for the tasting), and some Bernard Castelain “Palets des Papes” truffles (truffles with Marc brandy from Chateauneuf du Pape). These truffles are quite good with a dense ganache and thin-ish coatings (the style I like) with a strong initial chocolate taste, a good mid-taste of the Marc - not too biting or alcoholic, and a strong, clean, chocolate finish.