Modica Chocolate

There is a chocolate bar so delicious that I squeal like a small child when it is in my possession. Not only do I love the chocolate itself, but everything else about it too: the packaging, the color, the font they use, the wax paper under the paper wrapper. I'm kind of a stickler for details. And I'm a total weirdo when it comes to fonts. I'm at the point in my life where if I see anything written in comic sans I just completely ignore it.

It’s absolutely dreadful.

Back to the chocolate. First, a little history on it. It lives in Modica, in southeastern Sicily. Sicily has been ruled by everyone, it's old (umm, really old) news at this point: Greeks, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Germanic tribes with punk rock names like the Vandals and the Goths, just to name a few. When the Spanish came in the 15th and 16th century they brought their chocolate tradition (that they received from the Aztecs) with them and the Modicani people carried it on. I wasn't kidding when I said, "a little history". I just skipped over about 500+ years of goings on in Sicily. I wonder what the the Vandals would think if they knew that I eliminated them down to a single sentence. And not even a good sentence.

Again, back to the chocolate. The Modicani people inherited this chocolate tradition from the Spanish. The ingredients are about as simple as it gets: cacao paste, sugar and cinnamon or vanilla. The result is not the smooth creamy texture that most people are used to, it is a granular texture. When you break up the chocolate bar, you can see sugar granules in it. It's like some sparkly, red-carpet version of boring old regular chocolate.

The chocolate I am in love with is from Antica Dolceria Bonajuto. It's intense, dark, slightly sweet and has that wonderful granular texture that just adds a whole other dimension to it. Here's a breakdown of the process: semi ground cacao is heated and mixed with caster sugar and spices - either cinnamon or vanilla. The mix is kept at a temperature cool enough NOT to melt the sugar. This process is referred to as a "cold process". It's not exactly cold, but it's also not hot enough that it will dissolve the sugar. The mix is then poured into molds and formed into bars.

Thank you, Vandals, because in some strange way your history is in that bar too. Big ups to ya.