Past Newsletters
Vol 5 No 4

In Pursuit of Chocolate

THE ITALIANS
Great Lovers of Chocolate

You are sure to relish the two choices we have made from the Cuba Venchi line of chocolates. The Cuor di Nocciolato, cocoa and ground hazelnut filling in a milk shell will whisk you away to the Piedmont region of Italy where the very finest hazelnuts in the entire world are grown. Our other favorite is Cioccolato Ecuador puro fondente made with 56% cocoa.

These two flavors are part of Cuba Venchi's flagship products called Cubotti a totally innovative line of chocolate cubes, which showcase Venchi's expertise in creating nut based creams and pastes. They pride themselves in developing wholly diverse experiences for your palate, while exclusively using only the finest cocoa beans and traditional Piedmontese ingredients, such as butter, hazelnuts, almonds and coffee.

A Term We Don't Use Lightly

Have you ever considered what makes something gourmet? Consider chocolate for example: there are many delicious varieties available by chocolatiers from across the globe, but what qualifies a particular chocolate as ‘gourmet’? Taste alone is not enough to earn this merit. Gourmet epicurean delights earn this distinction based on a combination of superb flavors in conjunction with creativity, finesse, natural ingredients and processes… and a certain degree of exclusivity. It is this latter quality that truly separates out the delicious from the gourmet. Rarity is a consequence the scarcity of special and unique resources, and/or the lack of skill and knowledge of how to create these masterpieces. And then there is the factor labor intensity. Extraordinary chocolate could not be more suitably defined by any word other than gourmet, as it is notoriously difficult to cultivate, representing a high degree ]of labor from an agricultural perspective. And the requisite skills of selecting the beans, obtaining cocoa from the beans, conching and roasting all demand uncommon talents. Go to our website and you will be amazed at what it takes to produce fine chocolate: chocolatemonthclub.com and check out the link called chocolate bytes also the link called history is fascinating!

It has taken centuries for chocolate as we know it to develop at the hands and palates of careful yet inventive choco-latiers. In Pursuit of Chocolate is proud to offer you a truly gourmet sample of chocolates that have wowed gourmands the world over. Cuba Venchi has earned a remarkable and well deserved repu-tation, but as we'll see, reaching their current level of success didn't happen overnight - as their story actually began over 130 years ago!

An Indulgence Handed Down From the Royal

Turin, in the Piedmont region of Italy, has been well recognized as a culinary hotbed since the Savoy dynasty. The region's butchers, bakers, winemakers and confectioners have continually sought out new recipes to satisfy the fickle taste buds of the city's upper social classes - a tradition handed down from the courts of Spain and later expanded east to Turin. Not to underestimate the abounding culinary delights of the region, but Turin's real treat is without a doubt her sweets. Ever since the Savoy's began concluding their day with a steaming cup of cioccolato in the 1600's, the city has blossomed into one of the world's international centers for chocolate.

Cocoa first arrived in Piedmont only a decade after it arrived in Spain from Mexico via Cortez's legendary expedi-tions to the new world. At that time, cocoa concoctions were solely liquid-based, made according to the traditions of the Aztecs of Montezuma's court. In 1559 Duke Emmanuelle Filiberto of Savoy imported the use of chocolate from the court of Charles V of Spain, for whom he served as general. Were it not for this affiliation with the royals, the cocoa bean's treasures might have remained exclusively in the aristocratic circles of the Spanish court, as the beans were enormously prized and jealously guarded by the Spaniard nobles. Soon after its arrival, the Piedmontese quickly developed a passion for the exotic beans. Chocolate was soon adopted as a "royal desert" for the court of Turin, and it was through Piedmontese merchants known as "cioccolatieri" that the exportation of chocolate to northern Europe began. In fact, chocolate was first sold in Swit-zerland in the 1700s, a region that today boasts the highest per capita consumption of chocolate in the world! Speaking highly of its esteemed reputation, the great Swiss chocolatiers developed their tech-niques working with the masters in Turin.

It was in this tradition of haute cuisine, wine, truffles and chocolate (and of course la dolce vita), and set against a backdrop of Hazenut trees, vineyards, and green hills, that Silvano Venchi began his career as a confectionery worker in 1870 at the age of 16. Enthralled with his work, Venchi used all his savings at the age of 20 to buy two bronze caul-drons which he installed in his own apartment, and began experimenting in the creation of chocolate covered sweets. In 1878, he left his job and founded his own company, "Venchi," and by 1900 his rapidly growing firm was becoming known for the "…most elegant confections in Turin… Venchi's creations swiftly acquired national fame when the company began to distribute its simple but exquisite caramelized ground hazelnut mixture covered by a layer of extra dark chocolate. He simply called it "Nougatine," which continues to this day to be one of the company's most popular delicacies.

Another Piedmont Giant Is Born!

Pietro Cussino began his 20 year apprenticeship as pastry chef master
in 1929, in Cuneo, a small town in the Piedmont region. With his extensive experience in crafting his own personal brand of pastry delicacies, he founded his own business, producing biscuits and other associated products, such as chocolate, nougat and iced chestnuts. The company was named Cuba, an acronym based on his name and products (Cussino, Biscotti e Affini).

Over the next 30 years the company grew extensively and took up residence
in a town in one of the alpine valleys northwest of Cuneo, a short distance from the French border. In the newly expanded setting, Cussino devoted himself to exploring local traditional chocolate recipes. He and his team began adapting the most treasured of these to a semi-industrial context, still employing traditional techniques and preserving the quality and authenticity of the original recipes. The company's reputation was rapidly established following the creation of a special version of a local specialty chocolate: the "Cuneese al Rhum," a praline made of a generous portion of chocolate and filled with a rum-flavored cream. The draw-back to the original "Cuneese" was that it only lasted a few weeks. Cussino succeeded in combining freshness and a longer shelf life in his Cuba Rum chocolates, without having to resort to the use of preservatives.

Sometimes Two Heads Are Better Than One!

The wild creativity of Venchi and crafty innovation of Cussino's Cuba were eventually combined in 2000 in a union that married two of the most esteemed chocolatiers from the chocolate launch pad of the Piedmont region. Cuba Venchi, as the company is now proudly known, boasts an impressive product line that includes 250 different heavenly treats spawned from the following scrumptious families: confectioneries, chocolates, sugar free chocolates (sweetened with Malitol), chestnuts, nougats, and giandujas.

The last of these families is a local original. Hazelnut has long been paired with choco-late creations, and these nuts from this region of Italy are the finest in the world thanks to the unique minerals in the soil of the hills in the region. The birth of the gianduja is attributed to the Napoleonic wars in the first part of 19th century, when the blockade by the Royal navy of all European ports caused a shortage in cocoa, which obliged Piedmontese choco-latiers to find a substitute. They discovered that by refining hazelnuts into a very thin paste they could blend it perfectly with chocolate, thus creating the gianduja. What was born as a cheap substitute of chocolate in piedmont has now become a delicacy, which only a few chocolatiers still know the secret process.

Note: It was in Piedmont that chocolate Easter eggs were invented in the 1860s, adapting a very ancient Russian tradition of giving painted eggs as a gift during the Easter festivities.

Only the Finest Ingredients Will Do

Cuba Venchi prides itself on using the best ingredients money can buy. Their Cocoa comes from the finest South America (Venezuela and Ecuador) and African (Ghana) plantations and their production standards are air-tight. From their deepest dark to their smoothest milk chocolates, and their multitude of fantastic fillings, they are totally committed to employing traditional techniques that in no way alter the genuineness of their ingredients. There are absolutely no preservatives used in their products, making them 100% natural! All the colors you'll see are also natural, as they refuse to use any artificial colorings that would otherwise interfere with the innate beauty inherent in their constituents. You won't find this same commitment to purity in most chocolates you can pick up at your local store, but you are guaranteed to appre-ciate it upon your first taste of Cubotti.

In addition to amazing taste, the lack of industrialization at their production facilities yields products that may vary slightly from batch to batch. This is not an indication of faulty quality control, but rather the mark of all artisan produced chocolates. As such, certain products may vary slightly in weight from time to time. Moreover, product lots may vary in taste and shape according to raw material lots and atmospheric conditions. Therefore, samples from every single production lot, across all 250 of their product lines, are tasted individually during the manu-facturing process, and while differences may be evident during the year, these are restricted to a narrow range of acceptable variation, all set forth by experts that assess color, flavor and overall quality. In this sense, Cuba Venchi, while producing literally tons of tasty treats every year, has the same commitment to its products as a small corner chocolate shop.

Rooted in the predilection for fine delectables that drove the chocolatier giants who were their founders, Cuba Venchi still exudes an unrivaled enthusiasm for conceiving and creating truly gourmet experiences for your palates. Unduplicated anywhere else, the blissful extravagance of these bite sized goodies is an indulgence you'll want to experience again and again!