Alice Medrich's Sarah Bernhardt chocolate glaze from her book, Cocolat: Extraordinary Chocolate Desserts
Sometimes we forget how things have changed in the chocolate world. Palates for more sophisticated recipes and quality chocolate have developed over the last few decades due to people such as Alice Medrich. I met her at the November, 2016, Northwest Chocolate Festival. Chocolate innovator and author of several award winning books, Alice Medrich responded to my questions by email. Her work has contributed to chocolate’s advancements.
1. How did you get into the field of chocolate?
I grew up with chocolate. It was always a family treat. At the drive-in movies, each of us had our own Hershey bar and we ate Milky Ways straight from the freezer. At one time my brother also made chocolate for a small company. When I began making chocolate in 1973, Americans mostly did not know about chocolate truffles. Opening a shop based around truffles and chocolate caused an explosion. I started at the age of 27 with a recipe for truffles that my Parisian landlady, Madame Lestelle, had given me for my birthday. Happy accidents, coupled with local tastes, culminated in what became known as the larger, “American” truffle. And, I remain adamantly opposed to the idea that a truffle is a candy. It is not a sugar based candy; it is chocolate.
2. What is your favorite recipe? Your favorite chocolate?
Well, I had a chain of Cocolat (1976-1989) shops, filled with truffles and desserts, so it’s hard to answer by picking among all of my sweet treats. If I want to eat something chocolate these days, I would nibble on a wonderful, artisan bar. I am less interested in butter and cream. If I look at the bars that I brought back from the most recent Northwest Chocolate Festival, I would reach for a taste of Vietnamese sourced Marou, and American chocolates such as Dick Taylor, Rogue; also, Guittard. Admittedly, I can’t bring myself to journal the details of each one when I am enjoying a great chocolate. As a Good Food Awards (San Francisco) judge and taster, I can tell you that the smaller chocolate makers are getting better and better.
3. How have chocolate trends evolved?
The first wave of the chocolate revolution (in the late 70’s and 80’s) was all about what we were doing WITH chocolate; that is, the kinds of recipes and desserts we were developing with it. Instead of sweet American candy and fluffy chocolate cakes, it became about the chocolate, such as truffles and flourless chocolate torte, all of those more European desserts that were more chocolatey and less sweet. The Cocolat stores were extremely important to that phase.
The next wave reinvented the chocolate itself and that came about when people like John Scharffenberger started making craft chocolate. I was lucky to have been there from the beginning. We redefined chocolate transparency by introducing the use of cacao percentages. Ingredients had to be natural, nothing artificial, no commercial mixes, no stabilizers, only pure extracts. Until then no American chocolate was labeled with that information and consumers had no understanding of the impact. There needed to be education.
I knew that chocolate in America was changing.
Deborah R. Prinz lectures about chocolate and religions around the world. A regular contributor to several blogs, The Daily Forward , and elsewhere on the topic of chocolate, she has presented more than 100 times in five countries at chocolate festivals, libraries, museums, culinary events, and congregations. She co-curates “Jews on the Chocolate Trail” a traveling exhibit created for the Herbert and Eileen Bernard Museum of Temple Emanu-El, New York City, displayed there from October 2017-February 2018.