Belgian Chocolate

This past weekend, 8 of us on the program went to Belgium. We booked a flight to Brussels, but also ended up going to Bruges for one day as well. Brussels is the capital of Belgium. Brussels is known for its French and Flemish culture. The city of Brussels is enhanced by medieval streets, touristic squares, monuments, parks, lots of little cafés, and interesting and authentic Belgium restaurants. We didn’t do any historical sightseeing, but we did eat a great amount of food, especially chocolate. I wanted to write my journal this time on “Belgian Chocolate.” Chocolate is my weakness, especially dark chocolate. But I learned that chocolate doesn’t make you fat (unless eaten in large quantities,) and it is actually good for your cholesterol.

Although Brussels is known for having amazing homemade Belgian chocolate, we didn't really have any chocolate until we went to Bruges. Bruge is a town about an hour away from Brussels. We took the train at 9am and got there by 10 so we could spend the entire day exploring Bruges. Bruges is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in Belgium. It is located in the northwest area of the country. Bruges has roads and roads of little cafes/tea rooms and over 50 chocolate shops. We stopped in basically all of the chocolate shops to see what they offered and sometimes bought a treat for the walk.

Our first adventure of the day was seeing the chocolate museum called the Choco Story Chocolate Museum. This museum is composed of several rooms describing the story of the transformation of the cocoa bean into chocolate as well as promoting the health and quality aspects of Belgian chocolate. Chocolate was first consumed as a bitter and spicy drink by the Aztecs and also was used as a currency exchange to buy gold. Later, the sweet chocolate drink was found in royal courts of Spain, France, and throughout all of Europe. In the 18^th century, the hot chocolate was mixed with milk and sugar instead of water and then transformed into the chocolate we eat today.

Here is a link of the history of chocolate.
http://www.choco-story.be/ENG/history.htm

Chocolate is prepared from seeds of a cocoa tree. The cocoa beans are dried by the sun and sent to chocolate manufactures to be made into a product. In the factories, the seeds are roasted and crushed to make a cocoa powder (sometimes squeezed to make cocoa butter). The chocolate is made by mixing the powder and butter with sugar and milk powder. Dark chocolate contains up to 75% cocoa, milk chocolate contains more milk powder and white chocolate is only made from cocoa butter, sugar, and milk (no cocoa). Notice the pictures below to see the variation of contents to make the types of chocolate. The coolest thing I learned from the museum is the fact that dark chocolate is composed of more cocoa than sugar, while white chocolate is composed of almost half sugar and no cocoa. That is why dark chocolate is so much better for you! The last part of the museum was a demonstration showing how to make “pralines” with fillings.

White Milk, Milk Chocolate, Dark Chocolate

Here is a link on how to make certain chocolates:

http://www.choco-story.be/ENG/recipes.htm

The Belgian praline, commonly known as "Belgian chocolates" was invented in 1912 in Brussels by Jean Neuhaus, a Belgian entrepreneur of Swiss descent. His family had a tradition of making candy for pharmaceutical purposes (to help against coughing, or against stomachaches for example), but the praline advanced farther into a form of art. There have always been many forms and shapes in Belgian pralines. They nearly always contain a hard chocolate shell with a softer (sometimes liquid) filling. The filling can be butter, liquor, nuts, marzipan, or even a different kind of chocolate. Today, Belgian pralines are still very popular in Belgium as well as in other countries. The most important manufacturers are Neuhaus, Godiva, Leonidas and Guylian.

Here is a praline that we tried in Bruges.

Over the 2 days that I was in Belgium, I had about 5 pounds of chocolate, not really, but a lot! I learned a ton of information on how chocolate originated and I loved seeing it be made right in front of me. This weekend trip to Belgium was very successful and all the chocolate I ate and information I learned will always be with me, literally.