Boston Flora

Tag: chocolate

  • Tuesdays, April 15 – June 3, 8:30 pm – 10:00 pm Eastern (but recorded) – Chocolate: From Commodity Crop to Ephemeral Luxury, Online

    Chocolate. The word evokes images of rich desserts, steaming bowls of hot cocoa, and artistic displays of delicious truffles. The so-called “food of the gods” may be the most universally loved food in the world. What consumers experience as an ephemeral indulgence is also a crucial commodity crop for 5 million cacao producers worldwide, as well as the basis of global chocolate and confectionery markets valued at approximately $100 billion.

    To love chocolate is to know it deeply enough to make informed decisions when buying and consuming it. In this Stanford University online continuing education course on Tuesdays, April 15 – June 3, we will explore the historical, cultural, and scientific implications of our society’s fascination with chocolate. Together, we will learn how cacao and chocolate move from the farm to your palate, engaging with questions of tropical agronomy, international trade and manufacturing, global politics, contemporary ethics, and social justice. Of course, the most satisfying way to learn about chocolate is by eating it. The course will include guided tastings to help you develop a comprehensive understanding of how chocolate is not just one flavor but rather a gateway to many sensory experiences. This course is for people who seek to be more confident in their ability to navigate chocolate products and who want to be more thoughtful about their chocolate consumption.

    Tuition $425. Recordings will be available. Register HERE. This course includes optional chocolate tastings. The cost will be approximately $150–$200. Enrolled students will receive information about how to order.

    Faculty:

    Carla D. Martin is a lecturer at Harvard and the founder and president of the Fine Cacao and Chocolate Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing inequality and information asymmetry throughout the cacao and chocolate value chain. She lectures widely and has taught extensively in African and African American studies, critical food studies, social anthropology, and ethnomusicology. Martin has received numerous awards in recognition of excellence in teaching and research.

    José López Ganem is the director of innovation at the Fine Cacao and Chocolate Institute and an instructor at Boston University. He is also a trained sensory professional in the fields of cacao, chocolate, tea, sake, and wine via the Culinary Institute of America and Wine & Spirit Education Trust.

  • Thursday, December 19, 7:00 pm Eastern – Terroir of Cacao: Chocolate Flavor from Around the World, Online

    Terroir of Chocolate–Cacao Flavor from Around the World (Free Online Lecture) on December 19 at 7 pm is sponsored by the US Botanic Garden. Register at www.USBG.gov/Programs Chocolate can taste completely different when the cacao is grown in different places. You can even taste the difference between chocolate grown in different valleys of one Hawaiian island! Dr. Bletter will take you through the 12-step, 2-month journey of turning colorful cacao fruits into luscious chocolate bars. You will learn how the process was discovered in Latin America and how the steps affect the final flavor of the chocolate we all love to devour. We’ll also look back at the amazing ancient plant chemists of the Inca, Olmec, Maya, and Aztec who invented these processes and still to this day make incredible perfumed chocolate foams that rival modern molecular gastronomy techniques.

    Presenter: Dr. Nat Bletter, ethnobotanist, founder and flavormeister for Madre Chocolate. Dr. Nat Bletter has 25 years of experience in botany, traveling the world documenting exotic fruits and vegetables, gathering food in the wild, and exploring herbal and traditional medicine. With his Ph.D. in Ethnobotany from the City University of New York and New York Botanical Garden and postdoc at University of Hawai’i Manoa, Nat is the founder of artisanal chocolate company Madre Chocolate and runs the edible landscaping company Natty by Nature.

  • Wednesday, April 30 – Friday, May 9, 2025 – The Netherlands & Belgium: Cheese, Chocolate & Brews Tour

    Join Anna Juhl and Tenaya Darlington of Cheese Journeys in Belgium and the Netherlands for a unique spring getaway during tulip season, April 30 – May 9, 2025. This tour is for artisan food and drink enthusiasts who love to explore and experience at every opportunity. We’ve curated meet-ups and tastings with some of the world’s greatest cheese affineurs, beer producers and chocolatiers. Plus, we’ll uncover Amsterdam’s canals, historic neighborhoods and thriving food scene.

    This tour is open to all travelers. For complete itinerary and details, visit www.cheesejourneys.com

  • Saturday, October 14, 10:30 am – 12:30 pm – Cacao at the Garden

    Join The New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill for a special program on October 14 from 10:30 – 12:30 that will highlight the ceremonial aspects of cacao.  During this program, you will participate in guided meditation and reflection, sample ceremonial cacao, and learn more about its spiritual and scientific properties.

    Instructor: Rachel Goldberg

    As a Certified Professional Coach (CPC) and Energy Leadership Index Master Practitioner (ELI-MP), Rachel integrates her devotion to energetic health with intuitive pattern recognition skills and iPEC coaching tools to facilitate attitudinal awareness for her clients. Creating a safe space for her clients to withdraw from external pressures and witness their patterns without judgment, Rachel’s coaching practice empowers her clients to radically accept what currently is, while making clear focused decisions for moving forward. Working as a team, Rachel supports her clients in designing and achieving goals born from their authentic spirits.

    Rachel’s greatest passion is cultivating intimate connections through ceremony. Connection between self and spirit, humanity, and nature, and most of all, unconditionally loving and accepting connection between people. She believes the art of ceremony is one of the most potent ways to create a sacred space in which each soul feels seen, heard, and witnessed. A space in which to surrender to vulnerability and expression. After having developed a ceremonial practice over the past five years with cacao as her guide, Rachel is honored to spread this heart-opening medicine to the western world. To foster and nurture intimacy among those called to take the journey. To hold space as we drop from the busy and guarded head space into the raw and open-heart space.

    $45 Member Adult; $60 Adult (includes admission to the Garden)

  • Tuesday, February 14, 7:00 pm Eastern – Chocolate & Cheese, Online

    A duo of delights and a match made in heaven. Learn how to pair chocolate and cheese with a tasting featuring the exquisite and unique Formaggio Kitchen chocolate selection, expertly paired with cheeses from France. We’ve curated three chocolates and three cheeses for you to discover in a virtual class led by Formaggio Kitchen owner Julia Hallman this Valentine’s Day: Tuesday, February 14th, 2023 @ 7PM EST.

    Can’t make it? No problem! The Zoom will be recorded to be enjoyed at your leisure.

    You’ll sample amazing chocolates with bean origins from around the world and learn how to pair these delicacies with a wide variety of cheeses in exciting and new ways. Never had dark chocolate and blue cheese together? You’re about to discover this iconic pairing.

    Everything you need for the virtual event is included:

    ⅓lb Comté Fort St. Antoine

    ⅓lb Brebis Du Haut Bearn

    ⅓lb Bleu des Basques

    Marou Lam Dong 74%

    Amedei Toscano Red

    D. Barbero Hazelnut Bark

    A Bag of Crackers

    IMPORTANT: We want your cheese to be as fresh as possible – we will start sending packages the week before Valentine’s Day. The Zoom link for the event will be e-mailed to you upon purchase – please make sure to include a valid e-mail address at check-out. The Zoom will be recorded to enjoy at your leisure if you are not able to attend on the scheduled date and time. $ 115. Register at www.formaggiokitchen.com

  • Friday, December 8, 11:30 am – The History of Cacao

    Just in time for the Holidays, Master Chocolatier Raymond Hebert presents a History of Cacao from Pre-Columbian Central America to the Palaces of Western Europe. From aphrodisiac, to health food, to confection and back to health food, Cacao has come full circle. In addition, Ray will discuss new archaeological discoveries in North America that show the presence of Cacao in ancient Native American sites in the West that are re-writing the history of the movement of Cacao from Meso-America to other areas on the planet, where it cannot possibly grow on its own. The new evidence being offered suggest that 1000 years ago trade in cacao moved over a 1200 mile range to the North. This Cape Cod Museum of Natural History Lunch and Learn will take place Friday, December 8 at 11:30 am at the Museum, 869 Main Street, Route 6A, in Brewster.

    Admission: CCMNH Non-Member $25 / Member $15 / Includes Program, Box Lunch & Museum . Advance Tickets Recommended: 508-896-3867, ext. 133. Sandwich choices include Roast Beef, Turkey Club or Tomato Basil.

     

  • Friday, September 22, 7:00 pm – Bean-To-Bar Chocolate: America’s Craft Chocolate Revolution

    Author Megan Giller invites fellow chocoholics on a fascinating journey through America’s craft chocolate revolution. Learn what to look for in a chocolate bar and how to successfully pair chocolate with coffee, beer, spirits, cheese, and bread. This comprehensive celebration of chocolate busts some popular myths (like “white chocolate isn’t chocolate”) and introduces you to more than a dozen of the hottest artisanal chocolate makers in the US today. You’ll get a taste for the chocolate-making process and how chocolate’s flavor depends on where the cocoa beans were grown — then turn your artisanal bars into unexpected treats with 22 recipes from master chefs. Meet the author at Porter Square Books, 25 White Street in Cambridge, at 7 pm on Friday, September 22. She will also sign copies of her book Bean-To-Bar Chocolate: America’s Craft Chocolate Revolution.

    Megan Giller is a Brooklyn-based writer and editor with strong connections to the food world in both New York City and Austin, TX. Giller writes for many publications, including the New York Times, Slate, Texas Monthly, Zagat Austin, Food & Wine, and Modern Farmer.

  • Through Sunday, May 7 – Chocolate: The Exhibition

    Now through May 7 at the Museum of Science, Blue Wing, Level 1 is Chocolate: The Exhibition. A gift for the gods. A symbol of wealth and luxury. An economic livelihood. Bonbons. Hot fudge. Candy bars.

    For thousands of years, humans have been fascinated with the delicious phenomenon that we call “chocolate.” Today, most of us know it as a candy or a sweet dessert. But this wasn’t always so. Test your chocolate knowledge and discover the complete story behind the tasty treat we crave in our newest temporary exhibition, Chocolate.

    Indulge in more than 200 objects and highly detailed replicas including pre-Columbian ceramics, European silver and porcelain servers, nineteenth and twentieth-century advertising, and botanical representations. These, along with immersive, interactive components and media, reveal the rich history of chocolate around the world.

    Uncover facets of this sumptuous sweet that you’ve never thought about before. In this bilingual exhibition, explore the plant, the products, and the culture of chocolate through the lenses of science, history, and popular culture.

    Chocolate and its national tour were developed by The Field Museum, Chicago. This exhibition was supported, in part, by the National Science Foundation. For complete information, hours, and admission prices, visit www.mos.org.

  • Wednesday, November 5, 1:30 pm – Food of the Gods: Chocolate Production from Bean to Bar

    This Wednesday, November 5 talk by Wellesley College Botanic Garden fellow Katie Goodall will explore the journey of chocolate from tropical landscapes to consumers all over the world.  Focusing on Latin America, she will discuss cacao’s botanical origins, cultural history, cultivation methods, and their ecological impacts.  And what’s a chocolate talk without a tasting?  Be sure to come (1:30 pm at the Visitor’s Center of the Botanic Garden) ready to savor the flavors of local specialty chocolates. Image from www.neroandbianco.com.  WCBG Friends free, nonmembers $10.  Register by calling 781-283-3094 or email wcbgfriends@wellesley.edu.

  • Wednesday, April 23, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm – Creating Chocolate from the Garden

    Create your own handmade, healthy chocolate using garden ingredients.

    Chocolate Therapy, 60 Worcester Road (Rt. 9) in Framingham, creators of artisanal chocolates, will host the Massachusetts Horticultural Society for this hands-on event. Through lecture, demonstration, sampling and chocolate making, attendees will make their own Garden Bark and decorate it like the pros using ingredients from their gardens.

    Learn the sights, sounds and smells of chocolate-making, how to create unique flavor combinations and sample Chocolate Therapy’s award-winning truffles. $45 for Mass Hort members, $50 for nonmembers. Telephone 617-933-4943, or email lkamer@masshort.org to sign up.

    http://www.thismamacooks.com/images/2013/10/Chocolate-Orange-Pistachio-.jpg