diffdrummer: Chocolate: A Behind the Scenes Look

d e e p t ! (

diffdrummer) wrote,
@ 2008-02-14 15:32:00

Entry tags:

childhood, chocolate, cocoa, cocoa plant, kerala

Chocolate: A Behind the Scenes Look
Scary dreams are no strangers to kids.I too had my share. One particulary scary one was where I hated chocolates and banished all those sweet nothings from my sight. Then I'd wake up and be relieved to find that I still liked Dairy Milk and Five Star. It was beyond my comprehension how our parents could forego chocolates and let us kids gorge the brown goo to our hearts' content. But somewhere during the journey from the brimming cup of childhood to the thin restrained lip of adulthood, the dream became true. There are atleast two tins of molding chocolates in the pantry that I know of (and I don't know much when it comes to my own pantry) so there is probably more.

Two decades ago we were almost at the threshold of inhouse chocolate manufacture. Maybe it was in the seventies or in the eighties, a golden plant purported to give whopping economic returns was unveiled to the small farmer in Kerala. The plant was cocoa, our target was to become the Switzerland of Asia. We had the mountains, the valleys and the cheaper knock(ed)-off watches, the cocoa would take care of the rest and make us all Swiss Misses(and men could become watchmakers if they wanted.)

We didn't hesitate, despite being city dwellers we nursed grand green ambitions of farming in our backyard - the size of a handkerchief. Six or seven cocoa plants accepted our invitation and decided to call our modular(read space constrained) yard their home. They had good growing seasons, were low maintanence and produced fruits which bore no resemblance to chocolate. Althought we didn't know it then, it was a time when the world was in dire need of Our patron saint of searches- Google, whose coming was still more than a decade into the future. Otherwise we could've found this site and learnt the art of turning raw cocoa beans into chocolate slabs from someone living in a desert in Southern California and put an end to all our tribulations.

Elsewhere the real farmers who ventured out in to cocoa farming sacrificing their coconut plantations and tapioca plots were also hit a similar desperation, but on a larger scale. The cocoa fruit had no takers and the market was flooded with supply. For most of the cocoa-convert farmers it took years for a full recovery. Our backyard was enriched with ripened but purposeless cocoa fruits for ages before the plants became trees and succumbed to death due to natural causes, dust to dust.

Today, a day when for a few moments world trades in chocolates and roses, a dedication to one of the plants which makes it all possible(the other one is featured in a songs by Poison, Seal, Bette Midler etc etc - thereby quite famous and has thorns, not wasting my time there.)

cocoa tree

cocoa fruits

(p.s-These are not photos I took, the images might be copyrighted by someone else, if it's yours let me know.)

(Post a new comment)

	tko_ak 2008-02-15 12:40 am UTC (link)
	Nostalgic for India? (Reply to this)(Thread)

	diffdrummer 2008-02-15 01:18 am UTC (link)
	just spreading the spirit of the day :) (Reply to this)(Parent)

	ragh_dr 2008-02-15 04:27 am UTC (link)
	Very interesting! When I visited Kerala the last time, I saw many people selling homemade chocolate packets. I picked up a couple of them..they tasted good and were reasonably priced too. So, maybe the new generation of farmers were successful to a certain extent after all...at least I hope so. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	diffdrummer 2008-02-15 05:15 pm UTC (link)
	Wow, Never seen those homemade chocolate packets. Where did you get them? Interesting. (Reply to this)(Parent)

athiran
2008-02-15 05:10 am UTC (link)

oooooooo! i loved spending my holidays in my grandfather's cocoa farm. it was like a paradise, with cool shades even in a scorching summer and with water channels with tiny fishes.

he is an innovator of his own kind, made me eat cocoa powder mixed with jaggery, which he said is like 'boost' in fact it was, quite close. cadbury used to procure cocoa from the farm directly. i don't know what's in cultivation now instead, but the cocoas are all gone.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

	diffdrummer 2008-02-15 05:17 pm UTC (link)
	that might infact taste like boost. wonder why cocoas are all gone, esp when you had a supply chain going direct to Cadbury? (Reply to this)(Parent)

athiran
2008-02-15 05:14 am UTC (link)

thanks for the pics! i was forbidden from climbing the cocoa trees cuz the fruit sprouted from the stem and it'd fall off with the slightest touch.

have you tasted the pulp as it is?

we used to make cocoa-wine from the pulp. it's sweet the first day, but turns sour and gives you a high the second day. the third day, it would become so potent that would knock you out with just a single glass. much like toddy or palm wine.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

	diffdrummer 2008-02-15 05:18 pm UTC (link)
	I have tasted the pulp, slightly sweet, but was not worth the trouble of husking them for just that. Cocoa wine is interesting, never knew about that. Now that is something worth the elbow grease :) appreciate the info. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	simplesweet_87 2008-02-15 10:29 pm UTC (link)
	Tht pic reminds me of the cocoa tree we had in our bckyard in India, but I think they cut the tree recently cause the price of cocoa is very low nw adays!! The white stuff inside are really sweet for those riped ones, but the outershell is really messy and sticky! (Reply to this)(Thread)

	diffdrummer 2008-02-19 04:41 pm UTC (link)
	Looks like cocoa is disappearing from Kerala, although there are conflicting reports(read the second commenter.) (Reply to this)(Parent)

	jayasankarvs 2008-02-16 03:30 am UTC (link)
	'Kids are no strangers to scary dreams' ennalle? (Reply to this)(Thread)

	diffdrummer 2008-02-19 04:48 pm UTC (link)
	right, pakshe my subject was scary dreams unlike in the original idiom(is it one?) where the subject must have been kids, so I took the liberty. p.s - Redifining English, one sentence at a time. Check the search query and the 7th link :) (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	jayasankarvs 2008-02-21 05:57 am UTC (link)
	:)) (Reply to this)(Parent)

	gops 2008-02-20 04:00 am UTC (link)
	I used to live besides cadburry's factory. and the smell of chocolate (just imagine... ) at night give me a chocolate dream almost every night. :) (Reply to this)(Thread)

	diffdrummer 2008-02-20 05:01 pm UTC (link)
	You'd have been on a perpetual high from all that cocoa dust :P where is this factory, somewhere in western india? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	gops 2008-02-20 05:16 pm UTC (link)
	http://www.wikimapia.org/#lat=19.204181&lon=72.966337&z=18&l=0&m=a&v=2 :D (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	diffdrummer 2008-02-23 10:01 pm UTC (link)
	ok. typed in the lat-long in your link and it said salsette island :) (Reply to this)(Parent)

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