01 Feb Tallahassee Culinary Tour
It’s the month of love and there is not better time to talk about a Tallahassee culinary tour and chocolate! As a luxury motorcoach provider we frequently parter with groups to experience new culinary experiences. One of those culinary experiences is the discovery of chocolate. In this post we will cover some of the backstory.
From a classic, rich chocolate cake to chocolate dipped strawberries, and melt-in-your-mouth Lindt truffles to a soft, homemade chocolate chip cookie, there’s nothing quite like it. It offers all the feels, and gives most of us a culinary experience we want to have again and again.
Today we go and buy neatly packaged chocolate bars at the grocery store (maybe guiltily putting them in our purse for clandestine consuming), purchase boxes of our favorites for gifts, buy the richest hot chocolate mixes for cold winter nights around the fire, or get unsweetened blocks of it to use in baking. But anciently, it was actually first consumed as a bitter, frothy drink. Later, sugar or honey were added to give it a sweeter flavor, and what we’ve done with cocoa beans has continued to change over time: adding cocoa butter (fat that is taken from the cocoa bean) back into the chocolate liquor to yield firm chocolate that you can mold into various shapes, adding milk powder in to create milk chocolate, and conching, a machine that was invented by Rodolphe Lindt in the 1800s. Conching, in particular, accounts for chocolate that is smooth and uniform in texture.
But how do we get it in the first place? It comes from the cacao tree, where seeds grow in pods. When they are fully ripe, the seeds are taken out of the pods and then undergo a fermentation process. Once that is complete, they are roasted, and cocoa nibs are separated from the seed husks. Those nibs are then ground and ultimately liquefied into what we refer to as chocolate liquor — which is, at its basic, fundamental level, pure chocolate.
That chocolate liquor is then mixed with sugars and cocoa butter, to varying degrees, yielding the different types of chocolate bars we buy in the stores. White chocolate isn’t made with any of the chocolate liquor, though; in that case, the only ingredient that comes from the cocoa bean is the extracted cocoa butter, or fat, that is then combined with other ingredients to make something yummy and sweet.
But, you’re probably reading this and thinking, “Yeah, I’m a huge chocolate fan so this is all fine and good, but what in the world does it have to do with motorcoaches?” While coaches are perhaps most well-known for group tour transportation, we provide many other services as well. One of these is culinary tours, opportunities for foodies to expand their knowledge about different cooking techniques, combining new flavors, or making signature dishes and desserts. If this sounds like something you’d enjoy, call us today to find out more information. Who knows? You just might end up learning some new things to do with chocolate that will revolutionize your dinner parties for the coming year! If you’d like to plan a private Tallahassee culinary tour follow this link to learn more: https://astrotravel.com/destinations/culinary-tourism/
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