FOOD
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The stagnant economy is bad news for most, but there is one corner of the food market that is coming into its own. Paige Crosbie, co-Editor for Food & Drink, visits one such business to find out more
o artificially synthesise the taste of chocolate is impossible. Try as you might, you will never get anywhere close to the genuine taste of the mixture of cocoa bean and butter. It also contains phenyl-phyamine, the hormone which floods our brain when we fall in love, anandamide, which is what causes the feeling of wellbeing when marihuana is smoked, alongside caffeine, sugar and fat, all addictive substances. It’s no wonder, then, that we as a nation are completely obsessed with chocolate. Eating it, drinking it, crying into it under a duvet, chocolate permeates much further into our culture than most of us would like to admit. Just look at the starved look on the faces of all those who gave it up for Lent. There’s no denying that chocolate is of huge importance to the Irish people. Cadbury Dairy Milk is Ireland’s most successful confectionary brand, and we each consume about the weight of a car tyre of it a year, mostly at seasonal intervals like Christmas,
to fix. “I think we are now in the situation with chocolate that we were in 40 years ago with wine,” explains Francis, chocolatier and owner of KoKo Artisan Chocolate Shop in Kinsale. “Back then, people were drinking horrible plonk like Blue Nun and thinking it was the height of sophistication, whereas now people know what’s good and bad, where they like their wine to come from, even what temperature it should be at. Hopefully, we’ll reach a stage where people have the same attitude towards chocolate.” It seems an odd time for a shop with such seeminglyCeltic Tiger products to open up in a small town like Kinsale. However when you look at it, there has been a surge of chocolate shops opening in small towns across the country. From Wilde Irish Chocolates in Clare to the Skellig Chocolate Factory in the Ring of Kerry, there’s a whole range of chocolate makers with a whole
“WITH CHOCOLATE, WE ARE NOW IN THE SITUATION THAT WE WERE IN 40 YEARS AGO WITH WINE. BACK THEN PEOPLE WERE DRINKING BLUE NUN AND THINKING IT WAS THE HEIGHT OF SOPHISTICATION“ Valentine’s Day, and Easter Sunday, which in many respects has become more about chocolate than the resurrection of the Messiah. The chocolate market in Ireland was worth €583 million in 2012, a hulking sum if ever there was one. Most of this market is controlled by Cadburys, Mars and Nestle, meaning that our taste in chocolate is controlled by Cadburys, Mars and Nestle. Stunted by years of milk chocolate (with the odd box of Black Magic thrown in), it seems our taste buds are unlikely to have evolved past needing chocolate for the sugar hit alone. It’s this chocolate wasteland that small boutique producers like Francis Keane are attempting 18 // TN2MAGAZINE.IE
range of products that stretch well beyond a Kit Kat. From Chili Caramels (a specialty at KoKo) to Skellig Chocolates’ Chocolate High Heels, innovative and delicious products are cropping up all over the country. “People can’t afford the larger luxury items that they used to,” Francis reiterates, “so now they’re more likely to spend some money on something small but high quality, which also has a luxurious feel. Chocolate fills that gap perfectly.” It helps, of course, that we are the third-highest consumer of chocolate in the world. And yet, our relationship with chocolate is an odd one. Say what you want about hormones and chemicals,