History | Choqoa

“Where and when did this all started for you?” … It’s surely one of the questions that eventually always popup when people have an obsessive passion. No different for me it is. The question rose a couple of times lately amongst various friends and new people I met, and it made me think again of my very first memories to chocolate…

Yes, you’ve probably read that Chocolat Bonnat opened my mind and started my deep passion for origin cacao more than a decade ago, but long before that I was already hooked onto dark chocolate, it being the only ‘candy’ I allowed myself. The repeat question actually made me wonder again lately… what is really the very first remembrance of chocolate that I can bring to my mind?

The answer didn’t took me more than 10 seconds. I guess I was at the age of 5, or 6. It was at my grandmother’s place, where in the lower right space from the cupboard was always laying a big 500 gram bloc of chocolate, wrapped in dark blue paper with a bright yellow border. It had bold white letters ‘BLOC’, and I remembered vividly that at every visit it offered me a piece of bittersweet pleasure. It was the typical so called ‘bittersweet’ chocolate from that era, astringent in flavour by nature and sweetened with sugar to soften the taste.

I tried to find it back online, but it was – again- my ‘chocolate aunt’ from France that was able to pass me the real brandname of that chocolate: Martougin! I googled around and shivered when I saw back that unforgettable blue-yellow wrapping, to discover that this was in fact a very respectable chocolate factory, made in Antwerp (Belgium) with a pretty nice heritage, but more on that later, maybe.

For me it’s a wonderful trigger to my youth, and proves again that chocolate really does something to childhood memories. And it will for sure do so many more things in the future…

So, what is really the very first remembrance of chocolate that you can bring to your mind?

I finally received the 2 great books on chocolate I ordered at Amazon. I bought “Discover Chocolate: The Ultimate Guide to Buying, Tasting, and Enjoying Fine Chocolate” written by Clay Gordon. Accompanying this book focusing on “the new”, I also ordered “The True History of Chocolate“, authored by Sophie and Michael D. Coe.

Amongst the huge pile of chocolate books available, these clearly stand out since they are not limited to recipes again, but dig deeper to the roots of this wonderful fruit.

“Discover Chocolate” touches the new ways of appreciating chocolate, by illustrating a lot of insights, connoisseur’s experiences and debunking myths along the way. US based Clay Gordon is a ‘chocolate critic’, who also runs the fun website The Chocolate Life.com. A creepy though inspiring secret I’ve found out about Clay Gordon and me is that I myself got the chocolate virus almost at the same moment as he did, in the early nineties, but on top of that through the same brand: Chocolat Bonnat!

It was another book, Real Chocolate from Chantal Coady, that led me to the “The True History of Chocolate“. Chantal Coady is a real crusader of chocolate: in the late 80’s she launched the “Campaign for Real Chocolate”. She is also the owner of Rococo Chocolates, a specialty chocolate shop in London, and on top of that co-founded The Chocolate Society. Her mouthwatering book contains exquisite cacao recipes, she introduces also a little the background of chocolate, but eventually referred to “The True History” book.

Both books are mouthwatering, have great photos and illustrations, and both the design and size are very elegant. Happy reading!