Interesting Links for 21-02-2014

[andrewducker]

• Do Successful Programmers Need to Be Non-social?
  (tags: programming psychology )
• EU Commission launches legal action over UK air quality
  (tags: pollution uk europe )
• Demand for food banks fuelled by poverty and benefit delays
  (tags: poverty food welfare uk )
• Unlikely simultaneous historical events (the linked page is also fascinating)
  (tags: history )
• How to target adverts at cats.
  (tags: cats advertising )
• Parents and children swap clothes
  (tags: aging clothes fashion photography )
• Why Americans have terrible chocolate
  (tags: chocolate history )
• Venezuela Opposition Denounces Brutal Repression
  (tags: Venezuela )
• You May Not Use WhatsApp, But the Rest of the World Sure Does
  (tags: technology )
• It is 30 years since "Relax" went to #1
  (tags: music )

Comments

[matgb]

That bad chocolate story makes a lot of sense and rang a bell.

Guinnes basically stole his original recipe from London and Bristol brewers, but changed it a bit. During WW1, restrictions in the UK meant it was difficult to make decent porters, but Guinness wasn't restricted, so they cornered the market on dark beers.

http://www.camra.org.uk/page.php?id=231

Of course, the best porter in the world is brewed about 5 miles from here, but they're such a small brewery it's hard to get hold of outside Yorkshire, although Sainsbury sometimes have the bottles in...

chocolate texture

[darkoshi]

I was expecting the item on chocolate to be about a difference in how chocolate is made/processed in Europe vs America, rather than the ingredients.

I haven't had Hershey's or other milk chocolate in so long that I barely remember what it tastes like compared to dark chocolates. As an American kid growing up in Germany, I ate all kinds. The few milk chocolates that I miss (Toblerone, aerated chocolate, etc.) don't include Hershey's, but I was still surprised that some people feel it has a sour/vomit flavor. I don't remember that at all.

The difference that I have noticed (in regards to dark chocolate) is that German/European chocolate tends to be much more smooth and silky than American chocolate. Not in every case, certainly (there are so many different brands, and in some cases the texture deteriorates due to bad storage), but that is my overall impression.

Re: chocolate texture

[andrewducker]

My main impression of the US chocolate I've had is that it was quite grainy - the taste was definitely secondary to the unpleasant texture.

Re: chocolate texture

[andrewhickey.info]

That difference in texture and Andrew's comment below probably both stem from the same source -- that Hershey's, in particular, doesn't use much cocoa butter any more. Many of their lines (including Krackel and Mr Goodbar from the Hershey's Miniatures packets, one of their most popular lines) can't legally be described as milk chocolate even in the US, which has laxer laws about these things than most countries do. So for example Hershey's Milk Duds now have "Made with chocolate and caramel" on the label, rather than saying that they *are* chocolate. Cocoa butter, which is a fat which melts at almost exactly the temperature of the inside of a mouth, is the main thing that gives milk chocolate its texture.

The main Hershey bar is still milk chocolate, but it does have the "vomit" smell (only faintly, but it is there) for the reasons Andrew linked to...

Re: chocolate texture

[darkoshi]

I agree that the use of cocoa butter versus other fats could make a difference in texture. Sometimes, items with a chocolaty coating but no cocoa butter are labelled as "fudge" here, for instance "Oreo fudge cremes".

The dark chocolates I eat are true chocolate, with cocoa butter as the only fat*. They are categorized by the amount of chocolate, eg. 64%, 70%. I'm not certain whether the ratio of non-cocoa butter solids to cocoa butter is always constant, though - whether 2 different bars which list the same percent chocolate will always have the same amount of cocoa butter or not. That would be interesting to find out, and perhaps it really would explain the difference in quality.

This page: http://www.annarbor.com/entertainment/food-drink/chocolate-percentage-labeling/
indicates that the cocoa butter content can differ even for 2 bars which list the same percentage of chocolate. But the page erroneously indicates that cacao mass is the same thing as cocoa powder, so I'm not sure if the other statements are trustworthy.

*Many dark chocolates nowadays also include "butter oil" as an ingredient, but as I'm vegan, I haven't tried them.

Chocolate ingredients are confusing. For the bars I currently have, the 1st item is alternately listed as "cocoa mass", "chocolate", "cocoa beans", or "chocolate liquor". The 2nd ingredient is sugar, and the 3rd is usually cocoa butter. From what I understand, "cocoa mass", "cocoa beans", and "chocolate liquor" are based on the full cocoa bean, so they would already include cocoa butter. So it seems that both the 1st and 3rd ingredients add to the chocolate's cocoa butter content.

When eating 2 different brands of dark chocolate with the same chocolate content, they will still often have a different texture. The better ones feel more creamy, silky, and rich, while the poorer ones feel... not gritty really, but more chalky, and they tend to leave a more bitter aftertaste. So this is why I have wondered if the processing makes a difference - perhaps the cocoa is not ground as finely, or not blended as well. However, chocolate that has been stored a long time also tends to get more chalky and brittle. So some of the difference could be due to storage rather than processing.

(I suppose I will post this to my own journal too, as this has gotten rather wordy for a comment.)