photo credit: Xoco in Chicago by Kevin P on flickr.
It wasn’t that long ago when Hershey’s made news for claiming that chocolate is the superfruit. It caused a bit of hullabaloo. Do you remember? Don’t be too quick to trade your blueberries in for chocolate bars. Candy is no substitute for fruit. But actually there’s a bit of truth to this claim — or at least if you’re talking about where chocolate comes from. Chocolate is made from the cacao plant, and cacao beans are extraordinarily rich in the same types of natural compounds that made superfruits famous. These flavonoids have been found to improve heart health by keeping blood vessels relaxed, easing blood pressure and helping circulation.
Trouble is, most chocolate bars have squeezed out the bitter-tasting flavonoids and added sugar and fat to give it the smooth, melt in your mouth quality that we’ve come to expect from our candy. Milk chocolate is typically even more diluted. Who knows how many flavonoids you’re actually getting when you break open a Hershey bar. That brings me to XOCO (pronounced “Sho-co”) – the new Rick Bayless cafe in Chicago that specializes in Mexican street food, including authentic tortas, caldos, churros and Mexican hot chocolate. The housemade hot chocolate uses fresh cacao beans that are shipped in from Mexico’s Tabasco state and you can watch them grind the beans in the window of the restaurant. Now this is chocolate. This is what the ancient Mayan and Aztec civilizations were talking about.
photo: hot chocolate and churros by cristaa on flickr
I had the opportunity to see the hot chocolate-making in action with Shaw Lash, the executive chef at XOCO, who showed how they grind the cacao nibs until they liquefy. She gave a shout out to Chocolate Alchemy who blogs about making your own chocolate at home..
Here’s Shaw Lash on the right, following her demonstration (which was in the basement of Frontera Grill that’s next door to XOCO).
It all starts with the cacao beans.
You break them open to find these chocolate nibs.
The only thing they add to the chocolate is Mexican cinnamon and organic evaporated cane juice.
Here’s my sample of the hot chocolate, which is more savory than you would expect.
You can order different types of hot chocolate at XOCO, including the Aztec that contains ground ancho pepper and allspice.
And of course, the churros. You dip these crunchy sugar and spice-coated fried dough sticks into your hot chocolate. Amazing. I’ll take this over a Hershey bar any day.
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I’m so excited to see what Rick Bayless is up to with chocolate and I’m happy to learn he is helping to promote cacao from Mexico. I am a huge fan of Rick Bayless, chocolate and Mexico. I’ve just teamed up with a tour guide here in Mexico and we are offering luxurious and adventurous chocolate themed tours here, as well as other chocolate havens around the world. The Mexican state of Tabasco is on our itinerary. Mexico is one of the few places in the world where the rarest and best cacao beans are still grown. They are called Criollo and they comprise only about 5% of the world’s cacao beans. My friend, the aforementioned tour guide, just brought me back some criollo from Tabasco and I have been thoroughly enjoying the dark magical potion.
Oh man, yummmm! I love churros and to dip it into the creamiest and rich chocolate is just pure bliss. Though it is very plausible for chocolates to be a healthy food, and even a superfruit, if it was created in the purest form, just like this.
Great post Janet! I learned so much on that Hot Chocolate Tour!!!
Great article, Janet! The folks at XOCO did a wonderful presentation – educational and delicious!