PARIS

 
Monique Y. Wells
Discover Paris!

 Monique has lived in Paris with her husband, Tom Reeves since 1992. She writes the Entree to Black Paris Blog and was recently named Black Culture and Heritage VIP in Paris. She has authored several wonderful books and itineraries, including Paris Reflections: Walks Through African American Paris and the Black Pearl Walk. Tom is the author of Paris Insights-An Anthology and the Paris Insights blog. He is co-owner of Discover Paris!

 Chocolate Easter bell

Credit: Discover Paris!

PARIS GOURMET CHOCOLATIERS

   With Easter upon us, many of us will find our thoughts turning to milk chocolate bunnies, eggs, and chicks for the little ones.  In France, the same thought process is occurring, but one should add bell-shaped chocolates to the list of items to purchase for the kids.  According to French custom, children are told that all the church bells fly to Rome for a Papal visit on Holy Thursday and that when they return to ring on Easter Sunday, they bring Easter eggs, bells, chickens and bunnies made of chocolate to fill nests that the children have placed in their rooms or in the family garden.  The eggs supposedly fall from the sky as the bells fly overhead to return to their respective towers!  (Due to its Germanic traditions, Alsatian children are taught to believe in the Easter bunny, just as American children are.)

   Children are generally easy to satisfy, but for adults with a discriminating palate for chocolate, not just any store-bought confection will do.  Fortunately for them, Parisians have a number of excellent chocolatiers (chocolate makers) from which to choose.  The Left Bank seems to attract these artisans, perhaps because it is an area of Paris that is known for its creative energy. 

Easter at Ladurée

Credit: Discover Paris!

   The Saint-Germain-des-Prés area is particularly favored in this respect.  Master pâtissier (pastry chef) and chocolatier Pierre Hermé has a boutique on rue Bonaparte, and Pierre Marcolini has one on rue de Seine.  The 137-year-old Ladurée has a shop on the corner of rue Bonaparte and rue Jacob.  These well-established professionals have “gone global,” with shops in such far-flung lands as the United States, Japan, and the Middle East.

   Other chocolatiers are perhaps less well known, but are just as talented and creative. Only a few blocks away from the famed Deux Magots and Café de Flore, and only a half a block away from Ladurée, one finds the colorful boutique of Pascal Caffet.  Caffet and his wife, Florence, have worked together for years to build their establishment.  They started in the city of Troyes, but realized that they needed a foothold in Paris if they wanted to take their business to the next level of success. They have now gone a step beyond Paris, having expanded their operation to Japan.  Caffet is a pâtissier; he works with chocolatier Alexandre Gyé-Jacquot, who, at the age of 32, has the distinction of being a Meilleur Ouvrier Chocolatier (loosely translated as Best Chocolate Artisan) of France. 

Pascal Caffet’s delectable chocolates

Credit: Discover Paris!

   The brochure that presents Pascal Caffet’s chocolate collection is stunningly attractive.  Each individual bonbon might well be a precious stone, shown to its best advantage and accompanied by a succinct description of its composition.  The source of the majority of the cocoa used for fabrication is duly noted, with Venezuela being favored for dark chocolate and the Ivory Coast being favored for milk chocolate.

   Flavors run from the traditional to the slightly exotic.  Ganaches (fillings) might be as simple as caramel or an almond or hazelnut praliné, or they might be perfumed with passion fruit or Earl Grey tea.  Bonbons shaped like champagne corks are filled with raspberry-, hazelnut-, or champagne liqueur-flavored ganaches.  Then there are the chocolate-coated almond-paste creations, flavored with kirsch, orange, lime, or pistachio.  There are also mini bars of solid chocolate from Venezuela, Madagascar, Brazil, or the Ivory Coast.

Jean-Charles Rochaux

Credit: Discover Paris!

   Going a bit deeper into the Left Bank, one comes to the boutique of yet another one of France’s up-and-coming chocolatiers—Jean-Charles Rochoux. This 36-year old man is successfully fulfilling his lifelong dream of creating fantasies in chocolate.

   The following is one of the entries that one finds under “The Ideas Laboratory” on Rochoux’s Web site:

”Because of the many hours of work that it needs, because it disappears as soon as it is consumed, even though it has been yearned for, chocolate represents a form of ultimate, absolute luxury.”

This sentiment embodies the spirit of the artist and his attitude toward his chocolate creations.

   Imagine chocolate-covered strawberries mounted atop a solid bar of chocolate.  Rochoux’s Saturday chocolate bar (la tablette de samedi) bursts with the flavor and juices of a different fruit every weekend.  Only the freshest, highest-quality fruits are chosen for his bars.  Though Rochoux prefers to change fruits weekly, in the early spring, his choices tend to be limited to strawberries and raspberries.  He favors the prized Gariguette strawberry for his tablettes.  This French strawberry fetches a handsome price in the market because the plants only bear fruit once during the growing season, and Rochaux’s use of it naturally drives up the price of his product considerably.

Gariguette strawberries

Credit: Discover Paris!

   When asked whether or not his clientele readily purchases such items, he responded that his clients come to him for quality, not for price.  But he also emphatically stated that his customers come from a wide range of economic backgrounds and that even those who are on restricted incomes or are struggling financially can find their pleasure in his boutique.  They may come in less frequently than others, or they may buy fewer items, or both.  But they come because they seek the gratification that only a well-crafted morsel or bar of chocolate can provide.

   In October 2008, Rochaux launched the HABANOS chocolate.  The name reminds you of a cigar, does it not?  This is because the ganache is subtly flavored with an infusion of the three central-most leaves of the tobacco from a cigar!  For those who are skeptical that such a combination could possibly work, we invite you to suspend your disbelief.  This creation evokes nothing of the odor of a burning cigar.  In fact, the chocolate is smooth and unctuous with a tiny hint of what one might imagine to be smoked tea.  If nothing else convinces you of the genius of this master artisan of chocolate, the HABANOS will!

MORE INFORMATION

Pascal Caffet

40, rue Jacob

75006 Paris

Tel: 01.40.20.90.47

http://www.pascal-caffet.com

Jean-Charles Rochoux

16, rue d’Assas

75006 Paris

Tel: 01.42.84.29.45

http://www.jcrochoux.fr

White and dark chocolate tablettes

Credit: Discover Paris!

A chocolate vocabulary primer

Blanc – white chocolate

Caramélisé - carmelized

Enrobage – chocolate coating or shell

Ganache – the soft, chocolate-cream mixture that is used to fill chocolates

Gianduja – a soft mixture of milk chocolate, sugar and ground hazelnuts; comes wrapped in foil

Lait – milk chocolate

Noir – dark chocolate

Praliné – a finely chopped mixture of almonds and hazelnuts, incorporated into chocolates

Tablette – bar; such as those used in cooking (not Snickers or other industrially commercialized bars!)

Torrifié – toasted or roasted

Truffe – chocolate truffle; a ganache, with or without a shell, rolled in cocoa powder

A few tips for shopping in a French chocolate boutique:

   Dark chocolate creations tend to outnumber milk chocolate ones, no matter which boutique you visit.  However, the same ganache filling can often be found coated in dark or milk chocolate.  White chocolate is almost an afterthought.  Be prepared to find an overwhelming selection!