TIME FOR CHOCOLATE?

At this time of year I ineveitably visit central London whether I need to or not simply because it's Christmas and we always go to 'See the lights' as the town is decorated with lights for the holidays. Usually Regent Street and Oxford Street are the brightest and this year they are pretty.

I also get to thinking about chocolate. Especially Belgian chocolate. The picture you see is a snap I took some 8 years back when we visited Brussels to see the Christmas market. As it happens, the weather was pareticularly cold and snow and ice were everywhere. Our stay was longer than anticipated as we came by the Chunnel, by Eurostar, an easy journey from Paddington in London.

However, there was a strike or something went wrong and our journey back was delayed whilst we waited to get back on the Eurostar. It took three days for us to realise we weren't going to return to London as planned. It took a day and a half to use the usual railway route to Dover then on to London. So our extended stay meant we got to see more of the market and were able to roan around the shops and look into shop windows.

I think this photo is one of the prettiest, there are many I took as chocolate is on display all over the city. I wondered how Belgian chocolate became so famous and looked it up, as you do. Here's one of the things I found:

"Belgium has a troubled colonial past with the Congo which became their gateway to Africa’s cocoa plantations and resulted in Belgium bringing back cocoa beans to Europe from Africa from around the 1880s. This early access to cocoa before many other nations and the ability to understand how best to process the beans enabled Belgians to produce quality chocolate before anyone else in Europe and before most countries in the world. Even the Swiss, who are famed for their chocolate, learnt much of what they know from the Belgians.

Another historical development which has seen Belgian chocolate become recognised as one of the best chocolate nations in the world is its location at the heart of Europe. For years, people have been passing through on their way to other major locations in Western Europe and have been stopping off to pick up a gift of chocolate for their loved ones. ‘Oooh, Belgian chocolates – I hear they make great chocolates there’."

This was written on this website : http://www.belgiansmaak.com/three-reasons-why-belgian-chocolate-is-so-good/
and there is the history, techniques and all sorts of information written by a real Belgian.

I like Belgian chocolate, in fact most of the chocolate from major European cities are good, but I still enjoy 'Cadbury's Milk Chocolate' and I am sure I could do a successful blindfold test and still find it among some of the best. I don't know who owns Cadbury any more, I don't care, that is until the day some new owner decides to change the recipe. Then I would Boycott Cadbury's for good!

So at Christmas this year, I shall indulge in some chocolate and remember the days I spent looking through windows of gorgeous, simply gorgeous chocolate shops in Brussels.