Making Chocolate the Traditional Way, From Bean to Bar: A Short French Film

Chef turned restau­ra­teur Alain Ducasse has rather a lot to say on the sub­ject of choco­late.

On the web­site of Le Man­u­fac­ture, the small-batch choco­late fac­to­ry he found­ed in a for­mer Renault Garage, he wax­es poet­ic, shar­ing wide-eyed child­hood mem­o­ries of the “ter­ri­bly sen­su­al and bewitch­ing sub­stance.”

He’s a bit more mer­ce­nary in the pages of the The Wall Street Jour­nal and Har­vard Busi­ness Review, not­ing that the choco­late oper­a­tion grew out of his desire to con­trol the process from cacao beans to dessert plates in his numer­ous fine din­ing estab­lish­ments.

His involve­ment in the day-to-day oper­a­tions is like­ly cer­e­mo­ni­al, but in a choco­late mak­ing stint ear­ly in his career, he found the “olfac­to­ry uni­verse” plea­sur­able and “intox­i­cat­ing to the point of being dis­turb­ing.”

Take that, Her­sheys!

His fond­ness for vin­tage machin­ery and tra­di­tion­al meth­ods opens the door to some seri­ous cacao porn, above, star­ring for­mer exec­u­tive pas­try chef Nico­las Berg­er.

The word “metic­u­lous” comes up more than once in the voiceover nar­ra­tion. Hope­ful­ly, Sat­ur­day Night Live will take note. Tasked by Epi­cu­ri­ous to iden­ti­fy a guilty plea­sure on the order of choco­late or wine, Ducasse named BLT sand­wich­es, but he musters the req­ui­site, par­o­dy-wor­thy roman­ti­cism for direc­tor Simon Péno­chet:

Beyond gour­man­dise, we are seek­ing truth, a quest which is more pri­mal than orig­i­nal.

via Men­tal Floss

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Mar­velous Health Ben­e­fits of Choco­late: A Curi­ous Med­ical Essay from 1631

An Ivory Coast Cocoa Farmer Gets His Very First Taste of Choco­late

How to Make Sushi: Free Video Lessons from a Mas­ter Sushi Chef

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday