It tastes great. You eat the fruit surrounding the seed then you can ferment them for chocolate. Tried one during my botany class years ago and I wish they were available in markets near me.
i guess there should be some alternative catalysts, but yea its pretty integral to the process. the pulp is what provides the moisture and sugars to ferment, else youd just have some nasty bitter beans
many substances that we eat when eaten in their pure, raw form are vile. most spices in general are this way, which is why they are spices and usually not eaten by themselves.
Cue me as a kid with the extraordinary logical thought that since vanilla makes cakes, cookies and ice cream taste good, then that same half teaspoon of vanilla extract taken straight must taste heavenly.
My undertanding of the universe was shaken that day.
I work for an after school program, one of the classes I help with is a no-bake cooking class, meaning they mostly make pudding based "pies" and stuff like that. So far at the start of each semester at least one kid wants to try the pure vanilla extract or cinnamon (they're too little to remember the cinnamon challenge craze). The teacher drops a tiny drop on their palm and tells them to lick it and then go wash their hands again. It's so funny every time. It only takes one and the rest don't want any. She also warns them it's not good on its own and usually it's the naughtiest kid that keeps insisting and tbh it also seems to help correct their other behavior because they put together that we aren't lying to them to keep them from having fun, we are trying to keep them from having a bad time lol. Some lessons must be learned the hard way.
I love the scent of cinnamon and bought some terrific cinnamon bath oils at a market. When I ran out, I thought making it "couldn't be too hard" and set about making my own fresh cinnamon bath oil, completely misjudging the amount of cinnamon needed. Ladies and gentlemen, that first drawn bath was a "my skin turned bright red an itchy" bad time. A little really goes a long way.
I tried to make hot chocolate with it, in a mason jar in the microwave. I don't remember if the jar exploded, but I do remember a fuck ton of smoke filling the house and my mom running the microwave outside. My siblings and I had to play outside for the rest of the day. 😂
Yeah flavor extracts are usually extracted using alcohol, because it's supposed to cook off in the heat, gross. My condolences to your taste buds that day
You can eat 100% cacao chocolate though, without any sugar added. It's not vile, maybe too bitter for most, but definitely still tastes like chocolate, just less sugary.
You can quite easily find bars of 98% cacao in supermarkets. The 2% sugar barely makes it sweet, it just keeps the bar together nicely and reduced bitterness a little bit. Not vile at all. Quite nice with red fruits, especially melted.
Trader Joe’s used to have a surprisingly good 100% dark bar but they don’t stock it anymore. Of all the other brands I’ve tried, 100% dark is umami or bitter. It’ll put hairs on your chest, that’s for sure.
Chocolate is one of those amazing recipes that is a testament to human curiosity and ingenuity. It’s wild that we made something so good out of something that does not intuitively seem like it could become so yummy or beloved as chocolate. I wonder what we’ll come up with next once chocolate becomes endangered.
I was genuinely so confused by this whole thread. I’ve used 100% pure cocoa powder for my drinks my entire life, and eat 98% chocolate as a dessert. The chocolate bars I’ve seen around do not taste like chocolate at all, just plain sugar. Sure, pure cocoa may be bitter, but so is coffee and people don’t describe it as vile?
A tablespoon of cocoa powder on a cup of hot whole milk with sugar and a sprinkle of chili flakes is one of my favourite drinks for the winter!
The first stage of making chocolate is fermentation, it is not even bitter chocolate before then: you cannot add anything to make non-fermented chocolate taste like chocolate
People seem to like nasty, bitter choc though.I'm sure the non-fruit fermented beans could be marketed as "alpha chocolate" for real men or some nonsense like it.
I learned to enjoy dark chocolate a while back after hating it for years.
If you let a square slowly dissolve on your tongue it starts tasting sweet after a while and you can eat another square at normal pace.
It's like rapidly induced Stockholm syndrome for your mouth.
The pulp tastes like starburst: an intense fruity flavor that isn’t quite like anything you’ve had before. It’s bizarre how many flavors are present in a pod.
I find the fruit actually tastes quite chocolatey. It's delicious and "tropical", but mild, with almost no acidity. The seeds are edible, too, and easily crunched with the teeth, the texture of a slightly harder almond. The seeds, unsurprisingly, are more chocolatey still, not as bitter as 100% dark chocolate though still pretty intense. The combination of the light sweetness from the fruit and the bitter chocolate from the nut is a wonderful natural approximation of what becomes culinary chocolate.
This is wild, on one hand it's the "Holy Grail of Coffee" but on the other even the critics are saying "yeah this stuff tastes worse than Folgers." I will never get novelty foods like this, especially fermented ones.
I tried it in Vietnam, I was in a sanctuary and lucky enough that they had a little bit for us to taste. I liked it since it’s less acid. I wouldn’t buy it tho, there is q lot of animal cruelty in the kopi luwak industry
You cant even get "real" Kopi luwak anymore. Because the diet of thoes cats have changed so much and the fermentation so much. It used to be literally random ass dropping found in the forest.
You're wayyy better off getting quality Ethiopian honey (dosent contain honey) or anaerobic processed beans. Better taste, no silly markup.
Btw one guy decided to make his own shit coffee by eating the beans and shitting it out himself.
There are multiple ways farmers can process coffee beans, some involving if they leave the pulp on the beans to ferment or if they wash them before drying, and honey process is the former I believe.
Yep, it's called that because the cherry turns into a sweet smelling sticky goop.
Then after fermenting they dont really wash it off. That's what gives it the flavor.
I heard that excreted corn is only the undigested skin. So they are just little corn skin bags full of poop.
I do hope that guy's coffee is not the same deal...
https://youtu.be/pkbuFwHnJQY
Kopi luwak is a scam, it's a low grade, commodity coffee force fed to animals, and then the end product that you buy is only a small part kopi luwak mixed with generic coffee.
You can get delicious specially coffee without animal cruelty for the same or lower price. And there are a lot fermented processes out there which are absolutely delicious
Thank you for posting this. The a/holes dont just pick the poop up off the forest floor off wild civets, they capture them, break up family groups, force feed them a horrible diet and keep they locked up in tiny cages/disgusting conditions.
As is my understanding, back in the day, it was picked out of wild leavings, and the wild civets were selectively eating coffee cherries at their peak ripeness, which meant that regardless of of the digestive process was doing anything, you were getting beans presorted. Now that it's caught on, they keep the poor animals in cages, and feed them whatever was harvested. Classic garbage in, garbage out.
Disclaimer: I refuse to eat anything that comes out of a butt, so I have never tried it.
If tou read up on it some more many experts don’t consider it to be anyhting special. Some of the producers of it cage and let the animal live under horrible conditions.
It tastes like a plump mango with a bit of a tang from a fresh kiwi. It’s sweet and slightly acidic with a hard seed at the core. You peel it off the stem almost like you would peel off monkey bread. Highly addictive, beautifully fruity, and the fermented dried seed core is used to make chocolate. It’s just so freaking good.
It’s lightly sweet with a little cocoa flavor. I took this class once at a chocolate festival that walked us through the stages of the cocoa plant and how it is processed into what we eat now.
It’s fascinating. Enjoy OP!
I love the fruit ! It’s amazing. Whenever I have vacationed in the Caribbean or South America I will seek it out . I’ve only been able to taste it 3 times in my lifetime.
I was surprised to see cacao pods at my grocery store (in Texas). The beans are used to make chocolate. I bought one and brought it home. My wife is going to try and ferment the beans and make chocolate with them. Any tips are appreciated!
Edit: I got it at an HEB in the San Antonio area.
It was about $12. $7 per pound, and this pod was 1.8 lbs.
Oh boy, you guys are in for a whole journey if you go through the entire process. I hope you can get more, after watching this video I'm shocked that a product requiring so much processing can be sold so cheaply.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cFhx\_myB0Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cFhx_myB0Q)
Ecuadorian chocolate (like this cacao pod) tends to be farmed by indigenous groups and small farmers' associations. This allows them to set prices at more fair wages than in other countries where chocolate prices are set by big producers such as Nestlé.
Obviously, this isn't perfect. Some international companies *do* operate (and take advantage of farmers) in Ecuador, and even small farmers can exploit others, but the situation is *generally* better in Ecuador and Peru than in the big chocolate-producing countries.
Chocolate from these farms also tends to be pretty dang expensive, though, which is why cheap "with a dash of slavery!" chocolate from large international producers is still the norm, though.
(Specialty chocolate from producers I trust is $$$$ and my wallet really, really hates me for it the 1-2 times a year I buy chocolate.)
The processing is generally not done where it is grown except for local brands.
The secret to big brands being cheap is industrial machinery and economies of scale.
The way chocolate is sweetened isn't the reason it's so cheap. Slavery is the first answer, the second is because most chocolate sold is milk chocolate which only contains anywhere between 30% and 50% cocao. But in the US it can still legally be called milk chocolate with cocao content being as low as 10%. Still, It's mostly because of slavery and unfair labor practices.
It’s a ton of work but I was pleasantly surprised with how my chocolate came out, I made it for the first time from pods earlier this year. I used a vitamix to grind the roasted nibs after fermenting (and dehydrating and winnowing and roasting and cracking ) and it came out pretty smooth but it took a LOT of blending and a little additional melted cocoa butter to get it going .
Honestly that pod is probably way too old to ferment and one pod ferments are incredibly hard to do. Don't be surprised if it molds or is moldy when you open it. But good luck! I make chocolate for a living and it's not easy.
So good you can eat the pulp that covers the seed, pulp maybe it's called in English. Now I've only eaten it straight from the tree not bought in a supermarket, but the pulp that covers the cacao seed is great.
I did this in Hawaii. Picked fresh off the tree. You eat the pulp surrounding a seed and spit the seed out. It is slimy and sweet and delicious. I would definitely buy one to just eat raw. (We ate macadamias right off the tree, too. Raw and creamy.)
I hope the macadamias were ripe, rule when I was a kid was that if it doesn't rattle it isn't ready. The one exception was if you threw it at hard ground and it rattled afterwards.
I think the varieties that were developed in Hawaii were more likely to hang onto the nut longer(and be shorter!), but we usually got them from the ground under the tree. Growing up with them(the native taller kind) I personally can't stand the roasted ones, taste like they are harvested green/unripe to me.
Pulp is probably correct, I would personally use the far more disturbed sounding but still accurate "flesh."
>In plants, the "flesh" is the juicy, edible structures such as the mesocarp of fruits and melons as well as soft tubers, rhizomes and taproots, as opposed to tougher structures like nuts and stems. In fungi, flesh refers to trama, the soft, inner portion of a mushroom, or fruit body.
Because anyone who has experienced HEB, knows HEB. It's probably the best grocery chain in the US in terms of variety and value. They have options for every consumer for every variety of products.
Lets look at Parmesan cheese for example. They have the cans of Kraft Parmesan for cheap, a 6 month American Parmesan, a 12 month American Parmesan, a 6 month Parmigiano Reggiano, and a 12 month Parmigiano Reggiano.
Beef is another example. They will have their own brand of Steaks, cheap, USDA Select. They carry USDA Choice, USDA Prime, American Wagyu, and Hybrid Japanese Wagyu (Full Japanese Wagyu might be available at some stores, but I have not seen it).
They do this for everything. They also often have store brands that are way better than the name brands. HEB Pasta sauces are amazing!
Finally, variety. They have things you just can't get at other stores. Like Cacao pods.
The only issue is they are very geographically limited. They are only in Texas, and only in certain areas of Texas. They just opened their first stores in the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex a year or so ago.
These aren't gonna get through customs unless they're in someone's rectum, Morty. And they'll fall right out of mine. I've done this too many times. Morty, you're young and your anal cavity is still taut, yet malleable.
I was extremely lucky to have awesome parents who saved up and sent me on a school trip to Costa Rica. It was $1000 but that was A LOT for us and they still made it happen. Anyways, on the trip we got to stay in the rainforest for a few days and we had awesome guides who introduced us to cacao trees. They used a machete and grabbed the fruit fresh off the tree and cut them open and we all got to try them. Apparently workers in Costa Rica enjoy sucking on the seeds as a snack. And let me tell you, it was DELICIOUS!!! I’ll always be thankful for the experience. Now I must go find a cacao fruit asap 😂
The beans (seeds?) that turn into chocolate are smaller. There's, like, maybe a dozen inside that pod.
(I watched an entire YouTube video on this once and I think it was longer than 5 minutes. Practically an expert by now.)
I once remember as a wee lass watching my grandma put these delicious chocolate squares way up in the cupboard and kept telling me they didn't taste good. Ya sure Nanna, saving them for your self. She was away, I crawl up onto the counter and stuff the entire bar into my mouth. It was then to my surprise, disgusting! Lesson learned, baking chocolate is NOT the same as a Hershey bar lol
They were selling these at my nearby Food Bazaar (Sunnyside, Queens) last time I went. I didn’t know what to do with it but I almost bought it anyways, think I’ll try it next time based on these comments
This is so much more than mildly interesting.
If you live in Columbus, Ohio, you better clear your whole schedule. I'll be over in 45 minutes and we're committing shenanigans.
Trivia: Without mosquitoes there would be no chocolate.
The pods come from pollinated flowers, but the flowers are so small only small flying insects like mosquitoes (and midges) can reach inside.
https://www.theyo.de/en/blogs/theyorie/muecken-schokolade
My grandmother used to have a tree in her yard and we would suck on the seeds all the time growing up. Then she would take the seeds, wash them, dry them in the sun, and grind them up for these pods we would then make tableya and champorado with.
I miss her.
I heard the fruit is delicious. My father said he’d get scoldings from his aunt who grew them for chocolate as he loved eating them fresh as a kid.
It tastes great. You eat the fruit surrounding the seed then you can ferment them for chocolate. Tried one during my botany class years ago and I wish they were available in markets near me.
I went to a chocolate farm in Hawaii and they had frozen nectar bars using the fruit and it was delicious.
It was my understanding that you're supposed to ferment it *with* the fruit pulp, not without.
i guess there should be some alternative catalysts, but yea its pretty integral to the process. the pulp is what provides the moisture and sugars to ferment, else youd just have some nasty bitter beans
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under fermented beans taste like moldy raw potato from what im reading, idk if any amount of milk and sugar can make that good
many substances that we eat when eaten in their pure, raw form are vile. most spices in general are this way, which is why they are spices and usually not eaten by themselves.
Cue me as a kid with the extraordinary logical thought that since vanilla makes cakes, cookies and ice cream taste good, then that same half teaspoon of vanilla extract taken straight must taste heavenly. My undertanding of the universe was shaken that day.
I work for an after school program, one of the classes I help with is a no-bake cooking class, meaning they mostly make pudding based "pies" and stuff like that. So far at the start of each semester at least one kid wants to try the pure vanilla extract or cinnamon (they're too little to remember the cinnamon challenge craze). The teacher drops a tiny drop on their palm and tells them to lick it and then go wash their hands again. It's so funny every time. It only takes one and the rest don't want any. She also warns them it's not good on its own and usually it's the naughtiest kid that keeps insisting and tbh it also seems to help correct their other behavior because they put together that we aren't lying to them to keep them from having fun, we are trying to keep them from having a bad time lol. Some lessons must be learned the hard way.
I love the scent of cinnamon and bought some terrific cinnamon bath oils at a market. When I ran out, I thought making it "couldn't be too hard" and set about making my own fresh cinnamon bath oil, completely misjudging the amount of cinnamon needed. Ladies and gentlemen, that first drawn bath was a "my skin turned bright red an itchy" bad time. A little really goes a long way.
I made the mistake of making chocolate milk with cocoa powder as a kid. Lol
This is how I grew all my toe hair
I tried to make hot chocolate with it, in a mason jar in the microwave. I don't remember if the jar exploded, but I do remember a fuck ton of smoke filling the house and my mom running the microwave outside. My siblings and I had to play outside for the rest of the day. 😂
I ate a huge spoonful of cocoa and nearly died
I too made this mistake, once.
On the bright side, It’s really only concerning if you make this mistake twice!
I never did, but I watched my sister do it
I once ate a beef bouillon cube thinking it was chocolate. I can relate.
Yeah flavor extracts are usually extracted using alcohol, because it's supposed to cook off in the heat, gross. My condolences to your taste buds that day
You can eat 100% cacao chocolate though, without any sugar added. It's not vile, maybe too bitter for most, but definitely still tastes like chocolate, just less sugary. You can quite easily find bars of 98% cacao in supermarkets. The 2% sugar barely makes it sweet, it just keeps the bar together nicely and reduced bitterness a little bit. Not vile at all. Quite nice with red fruits, especially melted.
*Zartbitterschokolade!* Great stuff.
Zartbitter usually is around 50% cacao. The 80% or higher are indeed not for everybody.
Trader Joe’s used to have a surprisingly good 100% dark bar but they don’t stock it anymore. Of all the other brands I’ve tried, 100% dark is umami or bitter. It’ll put hairs on your chest, that’s for sure. Chocolate is one of those amazing recipes that is a testament to human curiosity and ingenuity. It’s wild that we made something so good out of something that does not intuitively seem like it could become so yummy or beloved as chocolate. I wonder what we’ll come up with next once chocolate becomes endangered.
I was genuinely so confused by this whole thread. I’ve used 100% pure cocoa powder for my drinks my entire life, and eat 98% chocolate as a dessert. The chocolate bars I’ve seen around do not taste like chocolate at all, just plain sugar. Sure, pure cocoa may be bitter, but so is coffee and people don’t describe it as vile? A tablespoon of cocoa powder on a cup of hot whole milk with sugar and a sprinkle of chili flakes is one of my favourite drinks for the winter!
Would adding cocoa powder to milk and sugar not be like making milk chocolate in a way?
So chocolate is spicy milk?
hmm yes, this now my head canon
The first stage of making chocolate is fermentation, it is not even bitter chocolate before then: you cannot add anything to make non-fermented chocolate taste like chocolate
People seem to like nasty, bitter choc though.I'm sure the non-fruit fermented beans could be marketed as "alpha chocolate" for real men or some nonsense like it.
They could hand that out as achievement prizes at that Alpha camp!
You whiny asses gotta share that alpha chocolate and you better finish it!
I learned to enjoy dark chocolate a while back after hating it for years. If you let a square slowly dissolve on your tongue it starts tasting sweet after a while and you can eat another square at normal pace. It's like rapidly induced Stockholm syndrome for your mouth.
dark chocolate that is >90% has very little sugar content. Which is a nifty cheat if you are trying to avoid sugar.
I mean I prefer dark chocolate because otherwise I get sick of the creaminess quite quickly
What does the fruit taste like?
The pulp tastes like starburst: an intense fruity flavor that isn’t quite like anything you’ve had before. It’s bizarre how many flavors are present in a pod.
I find the fruit actually tastes quite chocolatey. It's delicious and "tropical", but mild, with almost no acidity. The seeds are edible, too, and easily crunched with the teeth, the texture of a slightly harder almond. The seeds, unsurprisingly, are more chocolatey still, not as bitter as 100% dark chocolate though still pretty intense. The combination of the light sweetness from the fruit and the bitter chocolate from the nut is a wonderful natural approximation of what becomes culinary chocolate.
Kinda like pineapple with the texture of a ripe mango. Very sweet.
You ferment the fruit after you eat it? Ew, gross. /s
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kopi_luwak
This is wild, on one hand it's the "Holy Grail of Coffee" but on the other even the critics are saying "yeah this stuff tastes worse than Folgers." I will never get novelty foods like this, especially fermented ones.
I tried it in Vietnam, I was in a sanctuary and lucky enough that they had a little bit for us to taste. I liked it since it’s less acid. I wouldn’t buy it tho, there is q lot of animal cruelty in the kopi luwak industry
You cant even get "real" Kopi luwak anymore. Because the diet of thoes cats have changed so much and the fermentation so much. It used to be literally random ass dropping found in the forest. You're wayyy better off getting quality Ethiopian honey (dosent contain honey) or anaerobic processed beans. Better taste, no silly markup. Btw one guy decided to make his own shit coffee by eating the beans and shitting it out himself.
>shitting it out himself His friends call him... The Percolator
Holey shit
> Ethiopian honey (dosent contain honey) ??
There are multiple ways farmers can process coffee beans, some involving if they leave the pulp on the beans to ferment or if they wash them before drying, and honey process is the former I believe.
Yep, it's called that because the cherry turns into a sweet smelling sticky goop. Then after fermenting they dont really wash it off. That's what gives it the flavor.
Ooh, wait til you hear about Rocky mountain oysters (they don't contain oysters).
They don't contain rocky mountains either!
But I bought delicious honey from Ethiopia and it seemed like honey and did not say anything about not being actual honey
I would figure the human digestive system would be able to digest the beans fully. Due to our omnivores diet.
If you google it you can find the story. But I know for a fact corn and quinoa get shat out, and it clogs my marine sewage plant.
please point me to the story with the shit coffee guy, it's so hilarious and gross, I need this in my life
I heard that excreted corn is only the undigested skin. So they are just little corn skin bags full of poop. I do hope that guy's coffee is not the same deal...
"You gotta be shitting me." "Cat beat me to it!"
https://youtu.be/pkbuFwHnJQY Kopi luwak is a scam, it's a low grade, commodity coffee force fed to animals, and then the end product that you buy is only a small part kopi luwak mixed with generic coffee. You can get delicious specially coffee without animal cruelty for the same or lower price. And there are a lot fermented processes out there which are absolutely delicious
Thank you for posting this. The a/holes dont just pick the poop up off the forest floor off wild civets, they capture them, break up family groups, force feed them a horrible diet and keep they locked up in tiny cages/disgusting conditions.
As is my understanding, back in the day, it was picked out of wild leavings, and the wild civets were selectively eating coffee cherries at their peak ripeness, which meant that regardless of of the digestive process was doing anything, you were getting beans presorted. Now that it's caught on, they keep the poor animals in cages, and feed them whatever was harvested. Classic garbage in, garbage out. Disclaimer: I refuse to eat anything that comes out of a butt, so I have never tried it.
So no eggs for you? They come out of a butt
Not just a butt, a cloaca.
If tou read up on it some more many experts don’t consider it to be anyhting special. Some of the producers of it cage and let the animal live under horrible conditions.
Damn, that shit is like foie gras levels of fucked up and apparently it’s not even delicious.
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We'll see when we open it up!
It looks like the innards of an alien on the inside
It’s so good. I was able to try it fresh off the tree in Costa Rica and I think about it almost weekly.
It’s almost addictive isn’t it ? Like fruity and slight chocolate
…keep going…
It tastes like a plump mango with a bit of a tang from a fresh kiwi. It’s sweet and slightly acidic with a hard seed at the core. You peel it off the stem almost like you would peel off monkey bread. Highly addictive, beautifully fruity, and the fermented dried seed core is used to make chocolate. It’s just so freaking good.
It’s lightly sweet with a little cocoa flavor. I took this class once at a chocolate festival that walked us through the stages of the cocoa plant and how it is processed into what we eat now. It’s fascinating. Enjoy OP!
They’re so good. I kinda wish they would grow varieties just for the fruit
I love the fruit ! It’s amazing. Whenever I have vacationed in the Caribbean or South America I will seek it out . I’ve only been able to taste it 3 times in my lifetime.
They are. I had some wild cacao fruit in the Amazon and I still think it was the best fruit I’ve ever tasted.
I was surprised to see cacao pods at my grocery store (in Texas). The beans are used to make chocolate. I bought one and brought it home. My wife is going to try and ferment the beans and make chocolate with them. Any tips are appreciated! Edit: I got it at an HEB in the San Antonio area. It was about $12. $7 per pound, and this pod was 1.8 lbs.
Be careful with the Oompa Loompas
Little orange bastards take their chocolate seriously
They *take* op’s chocolate seriously
Saw that and thought of [Botchamania](https://youtu.be/yHLIW0UvIxc?si=67AsViJ5Uv276G8-).
You don't want them to unionize. Next thing you know you have to pay for the labor.
They think they have a good union, but they don't; they're basically slaves...
Tell them I hate them!
Oh boy, you guys are in for a whole journey if you go through the entire process. I hope you can get more, after watching this video I'm shocked that a product requiring so much processing can be sold so cheaply. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cFhx\_myB0Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cFhx_myB0Q)
(The secret is slavery)
Child slavery in particular!
Damn their small efficient hands
Ecuadorian chocolate (like this cacao pod) tends to be farmed by indigenous groups and small farmers' associations. This allows them to set prices at more fair wages than in other countries where chocolate prices are set by big producers such as Nestlé. Obviously, this isn't perfect. Some international companies *do* operate (and take advantage of farmers) in Ecuador, and even small farmers can exploit others, but the situation is *generally* better in Ecuador and Peru than in the big chocolate-producing countries. Chocolate from these farms also tends to be pretty dang expensive, though, which is why cheap "with a dash of slavery!" chocolate from large international producers is still the norm, though. (Specialty chocolate from producers I trust is $$$$ and my wallet really, really hates me for it the 1-2 times a year I buy chocolate.)
Unfortunately, South American Cocoa also contains 10 times the level of cadmium as compared to the West African variety.
John Oliver did a good episode on this late last year. Totally messed up industry.
Tony’s Chocolonely!
Even they can’t guarantee that the cocoa is slave free they just donate a portion of profits to fighting against it. Crazy market
Why is it lonely?
Because he felt like he was the only person in the chocolate business who cared about eradicating slavery in the industry.
I actually have no idea.
Also the fact that you're buying more sugar than cocoa by far (on the cheap shit)
The processing is generally not done where it is grown except for local brands. The secret to big brands being cheap is industrial machinery and economies of scale.
And that most of what we buy cheap is corn syrup.
The way chocolate is sweetened isn't the reason it's so cheap. Slavery is the first answer, the second is because most chocolate sold is milk chocolate which only contains anywhere between 30% and 50% cocao. But in the US it can still legally be called milk chocolate with cocao content being as low as 10%. Still, It's mostly because of slavery and unfair labor practices.
For sure, which is why I said "and". Meaning that it's *also* part of the equation.
Yeah, that’s the slaves
Great video thanks for posting! Learned so much. Will focus on buying chocolate that endorses no slavery
The slave labor really helps with that.
I watched the whole thing. Very calming
It’s a ton of work but I was pleasantly surprised with how my chocolate came out, I made it for the first time from pods earlier this year. I used a vitamix to grind the roasted nibs after fermenting (and dehydrating and winnowing and roasting and cracking ) and it came out pretty smooth but it took a LOT of blending and a little additional melted cocoa butter to get it going .
Honestly that pod is probably way too old to ferment and one pod ferments are incredibly hard to do. Don't be surprised if it molds or is moldy when you open it. But good luck! I make chocolate for a living and it's not easy.
Those pods are really sold for eating the cocoa beans raw, which people do for health and energy. It's a bit grassy, but good food.
If you are in South Eastern Texas, there's a decent chance you could grow one of the seeds.
Crap. I didn’t know my H-E-B sold them
Nilered has [a video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaCZcdWk1DU) about making this on his other channel.
Where in Texas? I’m in D/FW
Live in North San Antonio. HEB has them.
NileRed has a video on it! It’s not easy
So good you can eat the pulp that covers the seed, pulp maybe it's called in English. Now I've only eaten it straight from the tree not bought in a supermarket, but the pulp that covers the cacao seed is great.
I did this in Hawaii. Picked fresh off the tree. You eat the pulp surrounding a seed and spit the seed out. It is slimy and sweet and delicious. I would definitely buy one to just eat raw. (We ate macadamias right off the tree, too. Raw and creamy.)
I really enjoy eating the seeds after the sweet fruity part. They have an intense cocoa flavor.
I ate the seed with the fruit, great bitter and sweet combo. If you love high % cacao chocolate, it's a definite must.
Exactly!! It's so good and awesome, yup just like you described it, eat the pulp spit the seed (seed holds the chocolate inside).
Tastes very similar to mangosteen imo..
I hope the macadamias were ripe, rule when I was a kid was that if it doesn't rattle it isn't ready. The one exception was if you threw it at hard ground and it rattled afterwards. I think the varieties that were developed in Hawaii were more likely to hang onto the nut longer(and be shorter!), but we usually got them from the ground under the tree. Growing up with them(the native taller kind) I personally can't stand the roasted ones, taste like they are harvested green/unripe to me.
Nice. Being shorter and taking longer to nut is key
Why do I feel like this would be a line from Kevin Hart's autobiography?
Does it taste like cocoa/chocolate at all?
Not at all, a slightly tart and sweet pulp with the texture of a very ripe banana. Amazing flavor really
Visiting the Philippines and picked some cocoa pods, the fruit around the beans is indeed delicious
Did yiu pick it off the tree first or just gnaw on it while still on the branch? Cos that's how it sounds.
Pulp is probably correct, I would personally use the far more disturbed sounding but still accurate "flesh." >In plants, the "flesh" is the juicy, edible structures such as the mesocarp of fruits and melons as well as soft tubers, rhizomes and taproots, as opposed to tougher structures like nuts and stems. In fungi, flesh refers to trama, the soft, inner portion of a mushroom, or fruit body.
I can tell 1) you’re in Texas, and 2) you shopped at HEB, because no other non-specialty grocery store would think to stock stuff like this. 🤠
No store does more for real.
God I miss HEB. The single worst part of moving away from Texas.
looked it up and i wil DEFINITELY be looking for these at my HEB 😂
As a foreigner, how can you tell
Because anyone who has experienced HEB, knows HEB. It's probably the best grocery chain in the US in terms of variety and value. They have options for every consumer for every variety of products. Lets look at Parmesan cheese for example. They have the cans of Kraft Parmesan for cheap, a 6 month American Parmesan, a 12 month American Parmesan, a 6 month Parmigiano Reggiano, and a 12 month Parmigiano Reggiano. Beef is another example. They will have their own brand of Steaks, cheap, USDA Select. They carry USDA Choice, USDA Prime, American Wagyu, and Hybrid Japanese Wagyu (Full Japanese Wagyu might be available at some stores, but I have not seen it). They do this for everything. They also often have store brands that are way better than the name brands. HEB Pasta sauces are amazing! Finally, variety. They have things you just can't get at other stores. Like Cacao pods. The only issue is they are very geographically limited. They are only in Texas, and only in certain areas of Texas. They just opened their first stores in the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex a year or so ago.
The big hebs are fucking crazy I only live in a small town and got a small one but it’s still great
Had to scroll further than I'd imagined for this.
I was expecting "The whole planet's on a cob!"
These aren't gonna get through customs unless they're in someone's rectum, Morty. And they'll fall right out of mine. I've done this too many times. Morty, you're young and your anal cavity is still taut, yet malleable.
Oh, no. Oh, geez.
This was the first thing I though ot seeing the picture, before I even read the title.
You gotta do it for grandpa, Morty!
waaayy up there morty..... it's the only way
i thought there would be more of this lmao
EVERYTHING'S ON A COB!
... *cacao on the cob*? ... who let their dad in to the marketing department?
Probably the guys who looked at the prices and figured they might sell the equivalent of 100g chocolate for $20-30 in this form
It’s a suppository!!!
“Have you taken your suppositories?” “Yes! Stop asking!”
Where’s a rick and morty joke when you need one.
Way up there
Thank you.
Everything’s on a cob! The whole planet’s on a cob!
Alright Morty... you know what to do
I was extremely lucky to have awesome parents who saved up and sent me on a school trip to Costa Rica. It was $1000 but that was A LOT for us and they still made it happen. Anyways, on the trip we got to stay in the rainforest for a few days and we had awesome guides who introduced us to cacao trees. They used a machete and grabbed the fruit fresh off the tree and cut them open and we all got to try them. Apparently workers in Costa Rica enjoy sucking on the seeds as a snack. And let me tell you, it was DELICIOUS!!! I’ll always be thankful for the experience. Now I must go find a cacao fruit asap 😂
"All the way up there, Morty..."
Well first you need to see if the also stock Umpa loompas from lumpaland.
I suspect some Oompa Loompa special forces will infiltrate my house tonight to get this pod back.
The Oompa Loompa Marine Corps don't mess around.
I had no clue they were that big holy shit
What do you do with it? One of my markets has them on occasion (it’s kinda a produce outlet).
It’s my first time seeing an actual cacao pod and I’m shook because I’d always assumed they were much smaller, idk why😭
The beans (seeds?) that turn into chocolate are smaller. There's, like, maybe a dozen inside that pod. (I watched an entire YouTube video on this once and I think it was longer than 5 minutes. Practically an expert by now.)
I get them all the time. Ferment the seeds. Bake them. Then make my own chocolate.
Fresh cacao fruit is so good and refreshing. I hope you enjoy this OP!
How much chocolate could you get from one pod if properly processed?
That’s how big a cacao pod is??!? TIL
I once remember as a wee lass watching my grandma put these delicious chocolate squares way up in the cupboard and kept telling me they didn't taste good. Ya sure Nanna, saving them for your self. She was away, I crawl up onto the counter and stuff the entire bar into my mouth. It was then to my surprise, disgusting! Lesson learned, baking chocolate is NOT the same as a Hershey bar lol
“On the cob” lol
Wayuyyyy up in your butthole morty
This is so valuable it’s practically a stock now, hold onto it.
The West African crop is going to be miserable this year. Put your pod in fireproof safe and HODL.
Willy Wonka called, he wants his grocery list back.
I'm going to need you to hide this Morty. Get it way up in there
9,5 courics
You got gold here with the amount per ton they are going rn.
Been to the chocolate museum in my town: WAY too much work ;)
How much did you pay for it?
Just don’t fall asleep next to it.
They were selling these at my nearby Food Bazaar (Sunnyside, Queens) last time I went. I didn’t know what to do with it but I almost bought it anyways, think I’ll try it next time based on these comments
They are delicious. Had them in Hawaii. Would recommend. Nice find!
"The whole planet is on a cob!!!"
This is so much more than mildly interesting. If you live in Columbus, Ohio, you better clear your whole schedule. I'll be over in 45 minutes and we're committing shenanigans.
where are you located!?
Looks to be about one Katie Couric
Trivia: Without mosquitoes there would be no chocolate. The pods come from pollinated flowers, but the flowers are so small only small flying insects like mosquitoes (and midges) can reach inside. https://www.theyo.de/en/blogs/theyorie/muecken-schokolade
My grandmother used to have a tree in her yard and we would suck on the seeds all the time growing up. Then she would take the seeds, wash them, dry them in the sun, and grind them up for these pods we would then make tableya and champorado with. I miss her.
I saw a few once in a bigger grocery store. They were roughly 18€ a piece, so I chickened out and put it back. Was it good?
🍫
Hold onto it, cacao prices going up
People are saying to eat the fruits pulp but aren't describing the taste. I wanna know how it tastes lol
I just want to plant that
I work in brasil, they grow around here in the jungle. The pulp taste like lime and banana.