Will chocolate become the new caviar?
That was the question asked on NPR’s news blog last week.
With farmers in Africa abandoning cocoa for crops that are easier to grow and monetise, the piece painted a futurescape of ever scarcer cocoa beans and ever more expensive bars of chocolate (I mean really, as if our economic woes weren’t bad enough…).
Whether this grim prediction regarding our most beloved of confections holds up, I am not qualified to say. Whether it is worth paying a premium for any chocolate, on that, at least I have an opinion, which is that the very good stuff is often worth the extra (though, in the Irish case, we may have to go to the European Central Bank or the International Monetary Fund to get the necessary spondulicks).
If indeed it is the good stuff you’re after (and you’re feeling suitably solvent) you may want to consider the chocolate of Claudio Corallo, described (by people I can only presume to be more knowledgeable than I) as the best chocolate in the world. No pressure there, then.
Claudio Corallo 73.5% chocolate with cocoa nibs
Whaddya Sayin’?