Spotlight

Spreading chocolatey cheer

From chocolate festivals to chocolate workshops and chocolate academies, the popularity of chocolates is certainly on the rise across the city. And with the festive season around the corner, chocolates are increasingly serving as an option to the traditional mithai. By Beryl Menezes

L-R: Chef Sadhu Shettigar, Chef Kaikoy and Chef Arindham Bahel pose behind the sculptures

General manager of Rodas, Punish Sharma addresses a press conference for Chocoholics-II

While chocolate, or 'theobroma' means the 'food of the gods' in Greek, many Indians today are taking the concept quite literally. With the onset of the festive season, hoteliers are busy boosting their chocolate sales which have seen a rise when compared to traditional mithai. Rodas Hotel, in Powai, Mumbai is one such example.

Seeing the overwhelming response to Chocoholics-I, a chocolate convention held at the hotel last year for Hiranandani residents where pastry chefs of leading hotels came together to host chocolate-making workshops, the hotel decided to host the convention again this year, in a slightly different avatar. "This year, Chocoholics-II was organised on a much grander scale, with many interesting events lined up, for both nearby residents and clientele from all over the city," said Arun Pratap Singh, F&B manager, Rodas. The three-day convention saw a grand opening on the first day with 12 expert chefs, including Chef Kaviraj Khialani, from Kohinoor Institute, executive chef Sudhir Pai of Unilever, Chef Iranpur of Taj Hotels, Chef Mark Kocchar of Marine Plaza, Chef Sanjay from VITS and mixologist Shatbhi Basu interact with guests, sharing chocolate recipes and demonstrations, as well as tips on making hand-made chocolates and chocolate-based cocktails and mocktails. The chefs also enlightened guests on the health-benefits of chocolates, exploding a number of myths surrounding the perception of chocolate as a fattening product.

One of the highlights of the convention was a chocolate fashion show choreographed by Bollywood choreographer Retesh Narayan, where Gladrags models walked the ramp at Aura, wearing only chocolate. The convention also had chocolate-making workshops, followed by a competition on the last day, judged by expert chefs. "There has been a rise in the demand for chocolates during the festive season in the past few years. Through this convention, we aimed at teaching guests to make the chocolates themselves, lending a personal touch to their gifts, as well as going beyond the traditional mithai by cooking up innovative variations of chocolate mithai, as demonstrated by an expert from Brijwasi Sweets. Of course, such festivals are also a way of promoting the fact that a hotel is not only about generating revenue, but also about educating people and giving them something back in return for all their support," said Punish Sharma, general manager, Rodas. Accordingly, the entire convention including the workshops were free of cost, and the response this year was double that of last year. The hotel tied up with corporates as well to spread chocolate awareness.

This year, the convention also featured some elaborate chocolate sculptures in different shapes and sizes, using 750 kgs of chocolate. "The chocolate sculptures displayed at the convention shows that there is more to table decoration than fruit and vegetable carvings. These sculptures can also serve as another option to the popular chocolate fountain at special high-profile events," said Muhammad Firoz Admani, regional sales executive (Maharashtra) of Morde Foods, suppliers of chocolate for the convention. And, apart from the innovative recipes, the sculptures also displayed creativity. "The planning and conceptualisation for the sculptures took around six months including sketching and designing the sculptures to decide which were feasible enough to create. This year, our team of bakery chefs designed 22 sculptures, experimenting with plastic chocolate or moulding chocolate and couveture, a mixture of chocolate liqueur and compound chocolate. The final construction of the sculptures took 18-20 hours, over a period of two and a half months, with each of the sculptures sporting a front façade of couveture," explained executive chef of Rodas, Arindham Bahel, adding that these sculptures gave chefs a chance to display their creativity.

In another event, Taj Mahal Palace & Towers, Mumbai hosted a chocolate workshop for special guests, where chocolatier Simon Badertscher of Felchlir, one of the oldest Swiss chocolate manufacturers, was brought in to speak about the process of making chocolate and share a number of tongue-tingling chocolate recipes. Chocolate samples of various grades, ranging from very bitter to milk, were distributed to guests, as Badertscher explained the method of chocolate tasting in the chocolate appreciation session. Hemant Oberoi, corporatechef - Luxury Division & executive grand chef of the hotel, said "Swiss chocolates are known the world over and the Felchlir brand is one of the oldest. The workshop was one of the best ways to spread awareness about the history of chocolate as well as its numerous variations and the plethora of creations that can be turned out of something as simple as chocolate." He added that, with the festive season around the corner, the time was right to host such a workshop and provide guests with a different gifting option from the traditional mithai, and one which they can also make themselves. Oberoi continued, "Going back to basics is the only way forward, Badertcher showed guests a presentation on how chocolates have progressed over a period of 100 years. This is a proof that chocolate has come a full circle from the crude and grainy bitter chocolate of the early days to the smoother sweet variety in the recent past and back to the bitter chocolate which has become the rage today once again." So with all the chocolate awareness and education being passed around, one thing is clear: chocolate today has moved on from being just an anti-depressant to a bean that has unlimited potential, simply waiting to be discovered.