 Modicashire chocolate
When Cristoforo Colombo, just disembarked in the new world, it tasted,
he judged it «food more from hogs that from men». Since then, the chocolate, not only
crossed the Atlantic sea, but also the imaginary collective, passing from exotic food to
curative food, from almost sinful greediness to refinement worthy of celebrations.
If the country of the Italian chocolate is the Piedmont, with its
24 traditional specialties, the true crib is instead, surprise, Sicily. The ancient county
of Modica it is, in fact, the custodian of the true original chocolate, prepared without
milk neither vegetable fats, but still following the recipe of the Aztec Xocoatl, handed
down by the Spaniards and preserved intact: seeds of ground cocoa on the metatl, a bent
lava stone, and mixed with vanilla, cinnamon or pepper.
The Spanish, in the passage, added the sugar and the Modica citizens
added obstinacy to never pass to the industrial phase of workmanship as happened in the
rest of Europe instead.
For a long time Sicilian town makes to speak of itself more for
the chocolat tradition that for embroidered stone churches, passing abundantly the straits
of Messina and also ending on the columns of the Herald Tribune, of the New York Times, of
the Wall Street Journal and of the Japanese daily papers. And it, almost unconsciously,
rides the wave of a fashion, that of the handicraft chocolate rigorously: a trend that in
2004, in Italy, has marked a more 10% in comparison to 2003, the last Christmas has made
to spend to Italians 55 million of euro, it employs 600 firms and invoice 250 million of
euro a year.
Meanwhile, the Modica citizens have gone further in the road to
bashful to the discovery of the quality. After having roused the Mexican producers that
still prepare the Xocoatl with the same procedure that in Modica, they have thought about
going up again so awry in the chain of the purity to find again and to propose, besides
the recipe, also the true Aztec berries. Their alternative is an Italian that has
discovered, in the African islands of Sao Tomè and Príncipe, the berries that the
Portuguese brought in 1822 from the basin low-amazonico: «We have planted again an old
abandoned plantation where these plants were spontaneously reproduced» it tells «and now
we work her with the same approach and the same cares that it has a good producer of wine
for the vineyard and the wine cellar».
An hard work, among the buffalos and the leopards that sometimes
assault the plantation and the kilometers of that same rivers that Conrad describes in
Heart of darkness: there they have also been set the particular methods of fermentation
and desiccation that exalt the qualities of the cocoa.
An extraordinary jump back in the time, for a chocolate, that of
Modica, that is never detached by the origins. Besides, Leonardo Sciascia so described it:
«Of incomparable taste, so to whom tastes it seems to have reached the archetype, to the
absolute one, and that the chocolate elsewhere product, even though the more celebrated,
is the adulteration of it, the corruption». Cristoforo Colombo, once more, was been
wrong. The Modican Chocolate is one of the best appreciated products
of the Sicilian pastry. It has a rectangular shape, 15cm long, and can be divided into
four smaller bars. The chocolate of Modica is prepared according to a traditional recipe
dating back to the Aztec ancient civilization and handed down to us by the Spaniards. Upon
entering a traditional "dolceria modicana", you'll smell delicious flavours
coming from the genuine ingredients used in the chocolate-making, such as bitter cocoa
paste, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon and cocoa butter.
The basic ingredients of modica chocolate are 500gr of sugar semolato,
500gr of bitter cocoa paste, either a cinnamon or a vanilla roll, and a cocoa butter bar.
The latter is specifically required to amalgamate all ingredients.
In the past the chocolate of Modica was prepared using some specific
utensils, like the "spianatoio", an half moon shaped tool, made of lava stone,
where all ingredients were low-heated and mixed. They were also rolled with a stone
rolling pin, whose weight varied according to the different working steps. Today in Modica
the chocolate-making uses modern saucepans, but has preserved the traditional pans which
are commissioned to the fewest tinsmiths left. The traditional recipe requires ingredients
to be rolled three times in the refining process.
The mixture obtained is placed into rectangular forms that give the Modica chocolate their
well-known shape. Before it solidifies the forms are lined up on a large wooden tray that
is beaten against a marble table top, serving to expel air bubbles and leave the top side
of the bars shiny and smooth. Then chocolate is left to cool down for about 24 hours. |
