Italian chocolate - Modica

A week ago I posted the first "episode" of a chocolate saga. In sharing with you my total and unwavering addiction to cioccolata, my desire is to share a little about Italy's local chocolate distinctions. Today's cacao capital is Modica, a small town in the Sicilian province of Ragusa.

We are talking about one of the world's best chocolate types. The legendary cioccolato di Modica.

It is an extraordinary and unique product manufactured in the small jewel town of Modica. At the very lowest tip of the island of Sicilia, baroque Modica sits perched on a hilltop overlooking a deep gorge and boundless rural panoramas. Trivia digression: Modica was also the birth place of writer Salvatore Quasimodo, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1959.

Modica chocolate is not smooth and refined. It is on the contrary grainy, and there is no milk chocolate version, just dark and darker. Cioccolato di Modica is a divine powdery, firm and crumbly block that can only be cut by a sharp knife, scattering crumbs of chocolate like those of a crusty loaf of bread. The peculiar dry texture of this treat surprisingly melts in your mouth almost instantly.

The Aztec recipe, as handed down from Meso-American Montezuma himself to the despotic Spanish conquistadores who later controlled Sicilia between the 13th and 15th centuries, requires the crude chocolate to be initially heated to around 40-50°C. When the minimal amount of cocoa butter melts, the basic ingredient can be worked together with cinnamon (or vanilla) and sugar until it is ready to be placed in the rectangular aluminum molds that give the stocky little bars of chocolate their unique shape. Before the chocolate solidifies, these molds are lined up on a large wooden tray that is beaten relentlessly against the thick pale gray marble kitchen table top.

This extraordinary ritual makes a tremendous racket, but actually serves to expel air bubbles and leave what will become the top side of the chocolate bars satiny and smooth. I'm now going to say something which will change your life:

The near absence of cocoa butter and air, makes Modica chocolate highly digestible and less fat.

After a few seconds of eating, the whiplash of undertaste intoxicatingly sets in, especially in the spiced varieties.

Excellent eaten with tea or a tall glass of milk. After a hefty dinner, a chunk of cioccolato di Modica and a shot of red wine will send you rocketing into oblivion.

Photo©imperatoreblog.it

Since 1880 the high temple of archetypal chocolate in Modica has been the Antica Dolceria Bonajuto. An ceaseless attraction for myriad devotees, local and otherwise, this antique repository of toothsome treasures can be found on Corso Umberto I, the main drag snaking through the hillside on which the town clings like crafted coral.

Flavors range from al naturale, vanilla, cinnamon and spicy peperoncino. More modern varieties include nutmeg, coffee, ginger, sea salt and bergamot essence. Wrapped in the Modican fin de siecle trademark paper, this IGP chocolate is a rare tasting experience that will change your fancy for chocolate forever.