For health reasons, and under a doctor’s supervision, I periodically do a five-day fast. I do eat, but very little. It’s a great way to become really grumpy, fast. You re-appreciate food and it’s a fantastic palate cleanse. When I “re-feed” I do so slowly and carefully.
One of the chocolates I eat during this re-feed period, to ease myself back into the chocolate correspondent’s chair, is Waitrose’s No 1, 90%, from Ecuador, £2.75. It’s fairly dry on the tongue, but has a good, strong, lingering finish, like eating ground-up coffee beans – if eating ground-up coffee beans felt good, which they don’t, but this does. I rarely go higher than 90% and generally you don’t get higher until it jumps to 100% cocoa. It can’t legally be called chocolate if it has no sugar or other sweetener; check the label of 100% next time and you’ll see.
Chocolate can’t legally be called chocolate if it has no sugar or other sweetener
The other chocolate I eat is Slitti, an Italian make, the name of which, for reasons I can’t fully fathom, makes me snigger every time I see it. It has an 82% bar with a mix of beans, £6.50 (selected Badiani Gelato stores). This is more commercial, as is often the case with beans from more than one place. But gosh, I was shocked at how smooth and lovely it was, yet strong and… fiery. These come in small but chunky pieces that reminded me of the Bourneville my mother used to melt down to make her chocolate mousse.
For those who want to try, perhaps, a more palatable 100% cacao, Chocolate Tree in Scotland makes one sweetened with cacao fruit juice, £6.95. The beans are grown in among coffee, cardamom and banana plants. It’s a different experience to a pure 100% bar, but well worth a try.
Photograph by Alamy
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