Gulf Food Show started today and with it hundreds of Chefs and Trade visitors landed in Dubai. One of them a dear friend of mine whom I know now for many years, an expert in chocolate. Philippe Blindenbacher is the instructor of Carma Switzerland, a company based in Duebendorf. For mare than seventy years Carma has been supplying high grade products to pastry chefs allover the world.

I met Philippe way back in Kuala Lumpur when he was working for a different Swiss chocolate company in the same capacity. Ever since we met up at least twice a year somewhere, was it in KL or Tokyo, or again, here in Dubai.

The word “chocolate” comes from the Aztecs of Mexico, and is derived from the Nahuatl word xocolatl, which is a combination of the words, xocolli, meaning “bitter”, and atl, which is “water”. The Aztecs associated chocolate with Xochiquetzal, the goddess of fertility. Chocolate is also associated with the Mayan god of fertility. Mexican philologist Ignacio Davila Garibi, proposed that “Spaniards had coined the word by taking the Maya word chocol and then replacing the Maya term for water, haa, with the Aztec one, atl.”However, it is more likely that the Aztecs themselves coined the term, having long adopted into Nahuatl the Mayan word for the “cacao” bean; the Spanish had little contact with the Mayans before Cortés’s early reports to the Spanish King of the beverage known as xocolatl. William Bright noted that the word xocoatl does not occur in early Spanish or Nahuatl colonial sources.

Chocolate has been used as a drink for nearly all of its history. The earliest record of using chocolate pre-dates the Maya. In November, 2007, archaeologists reported finding evidence of the oldest known cultivation and use of cacao at a site in Puerto Escondido, Honduras, dating from about 1100 to 1400 BC. The residues found and the kind of vessel they were found in, indicate that the initial use of cacao was not simply as a beverage, but the white pulp around the cacao beans was likely used as a source of fermentable sugars for an alcoholic drink. The chocolate residue found in an early classic ancient Maya pot in Río Azul, northern Guatemala, suggests that Mayans were drinking chocolate around 400 A.D.. In the New World, chocolate was consumed in a bitter, spicy drink called xocoatl, and was often flavored with vanilla, chile pepper, and achiote (known today as annatto). Xocoatl was believed to fight fatigue, a belief that is probably attributable to the theobromine content. Other chocolate drinks combined it with such edibles as maize starch paste (which acts as an emulsifier and thickener), various fruits, and honey. In 1689 noted physician and collector Hans Sloane, developed a milk chocolate drink in Jamaica which was initially used by apothecaries, but later sold by the Cadbury brothers.

Chocolate was also an important luxury good throughout pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, and cacao beans were often used as currency. For example, the Aztecs used a system in which one turkey cost one hundred cacao beans and one fresh avocado was worth three beans.

One of my other passion, apart from food itself, is photography, food photography to be exact. This came about with my work, spending most of the time in hotels, around food and working with food. I noticed many times when hotels hired photographers for a pictorial, these professionals treated food, a dish like any other products they had to shoot. Most of times results where not in par with the high charges. I met in my career only one food photographer, in Singapore who understood food and how to photograph it. Locking at some collaterals from hotels and restaurants I wonder at times who was behind the camera. To save any embarrassments I do no longer ask anymore. Another trend I notice is, with the digital revolution some PR managers take their matter into their own hand, grab a digital camera, shoot and print the flyer’s to meet the tight budget.

All photography where done with natural light with my Nikon D200, Nikkor 105mm 2.8f Macro lens. I own a Elincrom studio flash set with soft boxes of various sizes, Manfrotto tri-pod. I prefer however to shoot freehand to be more flexible while shooting. The only other tool I use frequently is a Minolta Light meter I use since many years and got used to its accurate readings.

Going through my old recipe book I found an old recipe I have not used in years, a recipe of a classic French flan, a Medieval Tart. The preparation is so simple and uses only a few ingredients, these however need to be the best of quality available. Any short comings will result in the taste if not in the entire outcome of the tart.

Ingredients for dough

750 gram Flour pastry
2 Eggs
100 gram Butter (chilled!)
30 gram Granulated Sugar
Pinch of Salt

How to Make Crust:

Mix salt, sugar, and flour.
Cut chilled butter into small pieces and mix into flour with finger tips. Stop working batter once it looks like “sand”.
Make a well and pour in eggs. Incorporate into flour using your fingers and a spatula.
Once homogenous, form a ball, place on a floured surface and knead for 10 seconds. Reshape into a ball, roll out with a rolling pin, and refrigerate for 30 minutes before rolling out.

Preparation Time: 20 minutes
Cooking Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1000 gram Milk, full cream
4 Eggs
200 gram Granulated Sugar
30 gram Cornstarch
Pinch of Nutmeg
Pinch of Cinnamon powder
Butter and flour for Pie dish

How to Make It:

Preheat oven to 210°C
Combine milk and sugar in a pot and gently bring to a boil. Remove from heat and let cool.
Mix cornstarch with 140 gram of water and then stir into warm milk. Put milk back on a low heat, and stirring constantly bring to a boil and then remove from heat.
Beat the eggs well, and then gently stir into the milk until homogenous.
Butter and flour pie dish. Roll out pie crust and place in dish. Pour in milk mixture and bake for 30 minutes. Let cool off before serving.

Tip: You can make this tart earlier in the day and let stand at room temperature.