191 – Is There Chocolate After Easter?

Listener survey underway. Go to theadelaideshow.com.au/survey

Poetry Slam Results: Nigel’s topic of technology was rated as most difficult and Steve and Amelia tied for best poem.

Marcus Booth-Remmers has long had the chocolate bug in his system, forging his career as a patisserie chef in some of South Australia’s top restaurants before pursuing cacao across Europe for five years. Thankfully, he returned home and set up Red Cacao in Stirling, where he and Yvi have crafted a chocolate kitchen, a cafe, and an award-winning dessert venue in the Adelaide Hills. He also is the target of many, many crushes, and one of our most fervent supporters, Janis, is one of his biggest fans.

Why does chocolate whip up a frenzy in most people?

Have you seen the great chocolate movies, namely, Chocolat with Johnny Depp and Juliet Binoche, or Like Water For Chocolate, with Lumi Cavazos and Marco Leonardi? In Chocolat, Juliet is carried on the wind and uses chocolate to bring people together, while in Like Water For Chocolate, rose petals in chocolate apparently caused great love and passion to explode.

Why have chocolatiers become sex-gods, almost with rockstar status? That is recent, is it not?

I’ve been lucky enough to have worked with you behind-the-scenes in getting your new website developed and I have been struck by the fastidious attention to detail that you apply to EVERYTHING. Does that hyper-detailed nature come BEFORE you are a chocolatier, or does it develop over time due to the demands of chocolate?

In talking with our musical curator, Dan Drummond, about the song for tonight, I’m A Boy, he’s picking up on the joy of being kids, especially at Easter, when chocolate is fun to have. Is there a danger that superb chocolatiers like you will make chocolate too serious, and forget its roots in joy?

Why do we need chocolate in different shapes?

What is the BEST pairing with chocolate? Nuts, fruit, spice?

Why is it so expensive?

How do you make a chocolate shop survive when supermarket shelves are groaning with chocolate?

Is the art of loving chocolate all about portion control?

Are we running out of cacao in this world?

What’s your secret chocolate indulgence?

LISTENER QUESTIONS

Janis Littleton
Did Marcus enjoy teaching at Sticky Rice and will he be doing more classes there teaching the magic of chocolate making?
I know he does some amazing raw desserts, but has he tried raw chocolate? Is it me, or is it just not as flexible in use as tempered chocolate.
And, final one for the hippy ethical Foodism brigade – is all his cacao sourced from ethical, fairly traded, child slave free cacao farms? This question was all the rage over Easter in some of the Foodism groups so just decided to bandwagon jump. ????????

 Nigel challenges the panel to pick the fake story from three stories from South Australia’s past.

The Advertiser March 1919
Demand For Easter Eggs
With Easter Saturday still some days away, a strong demand for chocolate Easter eggs, particularly the lower priced ones, has already been noticed by confectioners. Most shops are displaying a. wide variety of chocolate eggs, varying in price from 3d to £1. However, some suburban stores have reported that they have already sold out of the 3d lines. Most city stores are offering eggs at from 4d each.

News July 1935
Eating Contest Ends With 32nd Chocolate Frog
VICTORIA may – have its university duels and wheel barrow marathons, America her pole-sitters, and England her channel swimmers, but only South Australia could produce: the world’s champion Frogeater. The great “frog-eating” endurance test was held in the refectory at the Adelaide University yesterday. It was watched by only a moderate crowd of University students, and its progress was not cabled all over the world. The “frogs were chocolate ones, and were bought in half-dozens. Different varieties were bought each time, so that the monotony of the fare would not discourage the eater. The contest arose because a 20-year old medical student, J. J. Rice, and a cadet in the physics department, Murray Kiek, aged 15, had an argument about the number of “frogs” a normally healthy boy could eat in a given time. They soon arranged that Kiek should try to eat four dozen frogs in 35 minutes, for a wager of one shilling. If he gave in, or took longer than 35 minutes, he had to provide his own frogs as well as the shilling.

The Register October 1921
CHOCOLATE PILFERING
At a meeting of the Port Adelaide branch of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, it was resolved that this branch, although not approving of the thefts committed recently by the female employees at Walton, Ltd., strongly disapproves of the drastic manner these employees were dealt with in the Police Court, and the gross injustice meted out to them by bringing such girls before the Police Court, and branding them publicly for their  delinquencies. As they were dismissed when discovered pilfering, the loss of employment and consequent disgrace would be sufficient punishment enough in most instances.