Chocolate Tasting Menu

So a little update on this menu. I had every intention of playing out this menu again on the weekend and taking gorgeous new photos for you all but I’ve been sick and dealing with sick children so I didn’t get around to it. I will update this menu in the next couple of weeks with some photos but in the meantime, please enjoy. xx

Starters

This little menu is a way to get you thinking about your senses and how you can awaken the eroticism within you. As my lovely friend, Betony Vernon says, eroticism isn’t just about sex, it’s about “everything that you do. It’s about the way you cook. It’s about the way you create an ambience to receive friends. It’s about how you move through the world–and it doesn’t have to be in the service of men or sex.”

I’ve designed this Chocolate Tasting Play Menu to help slow you down; to help you appreciate what happens when we focus our attention on one thing, and the pleasure and eroticism that comes from that.

I’m using food because it is a true creative love for me and I’m using chocolate because it seems to be a universal pleasure. Whether you love it or like to leave it, I will guess that most of us rip through a piece or a bar of chocolate without ever noticing its nuances.

Main Meal

As I’m in Australia my chocolates will differ from those of you in other countries but here are some tips for picking your chocolate bars:

• choose five different types

• choose milk or dark chocolate

• stick to plain chocolate bars ( so no reaching for the Snickers bar)

• quality. it’s always about quality.

• try to get chocolate with different origins. Bars made with cacao beans from Ghana will differ from beans sourced from other places so look at the packaging and try to pick different regions.

• once home, keep your bars in the cupboard away from any strong-smelling foods.

For this exercise, you need the following:

• your chocolate bars

• a blindfold (optional)

• some additional flavours of your choice (chilli flakes, sea salt and fresh honey are some obvious choices)

• piece of paper and a pen

• a glass of water (flat and at room temperature)

This will be a great after-dinner exercise. The aim is not to stuff your face with chocolate but to try to have a lighter meal that doesn’t have too many heavy flavours that will linger in the mouth and on your taste buds. So, no chicken with 40 garlic cloves or Rogan Josh curry.

This isn’t about having sex so do this exercise in the lounge room or the dining room. Play some music, and light some candles. Grab 5 small bowls or a platter and break up some of each block into the bowls. Discuss what additional flavours you consent to be added to your chocolate. Like some heat? Then you can give a big tick to chilli flakes being added. Or perhaps a sprinkle of sea salt or a drizzle of honey.

Ask your trusted partner to blindfold you. Sit comfortably and relax. Your partner can then take a piece of chocolate from the first bowl, and warm it gently with their fingertips, this will bring out the flavour even more. They can place a piece of chocolate on your tongue. Hold it there for a few seconds and then slowly suck it, taking note of the flavours. This is what your pen and paper are for–your lover writes down what you experience. Think of flavour but also texture. How does it feel? Once you’ve tried a piece of each then your partner can add some other flavours–a dash of chilli, a sprinkle of salt or a drop of honey.

Then you swap over. A little tip: mix up the order in which you give your partner their chocolate.

If this gets you in the mood then by all means continue playing. The point of it all though is to help you think of other ways to play, and ways that aren’t centred on an end goal of penetration.

About Chocolate

While I was writing up this menu, I got lost down a rabbit hole (as I often do) and became consumed by the history of chocolate. I popped a very brief explanation of how chocolate is made below.

From tree to tongue: a brief story of how chocolate is made.

Two-thirds of the world’s cocoa is produced in West Africa with most produced in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana. Cocoa beans are found in the cocoa pods of the Cocoa tree, which needs rich soil and plenty of rain to grow.

Once the pods are ripe and a rich orange colour they are knocked from the tree and cut open. The beans are then left to ferment naturally for a week (this gives the chocolate flavour). The beans are then dried with the kiss of the sun for another week.

In some areas, the beans are then polished by “dancing the beans” where they are spread out, covered in oil or water and then they are shuffled against each with one’s bare (and hopefully clean!) feet.

The dried beans are then taken to a chocolate factory, where they are cleaned, roasted and graded. The shell of the bean is then removed and the nib is taken out and liquified to produce the pure chocolate liquor, the base of cocoa solids and cocoa butter.