One of the first films I ever saw was
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – not the latest remake with Johnny Depp, of course, but the original 1960s version. I considered it a great improvement on
The Sound of Music, which I had endured in painful incomprehension (
why were they running down the hillside wearing frocks, instead of rolling around and making mud-pies, in shorts?). The idea of visiting a chocolate factory, with lakes of the stuff, caught my imagination, and finally, last September at the grand old age of 41, my childhood wish came true at Guylian in Belgium. Unlike Roald Dahl’s Charlie, I had to wear a white coat and an unspectacular hairnet, and my personal Willi Wonka was the ultra-courteous Philip Bogaert, one of Guylian’s export managers. But as soon as I walked through the magic door, all thoughts of hairnets faded away. The air was thick with the unmistakable scent of chocolate mixed with hazelnuts. Five enormous vats, each with a capacity of six tons, towered above me, marked ‘Fondant’, ‘Wit’ (white), ‘Praline’, ‘Milk’ and ‘Sugar’. As I stood there, trying to grasp the significance of so much chocolate in the making, the comprehension goal-posts were moved by Mr Bogaert, who said that daily production reached 75 tons a day, or 10,000 tons a year, and that most of this is exported to 100 countries round the world. Through the next magic door, and this time I really wished I were still a child, or that I had some children with me at least. Chocolate sea-horses – Guylian’s trademark – whizzed through the air on conveyor belts. Crates full of them were stacked round and about: dark brown sea-horses, milky sea-horses, sea-horses with orange fruit filling, praline sea-horses. Men and women in matching hairnets packed them away in boxes. Pictures of giant chocolate sea-horses stood all around. I didn’t get to see any lakes of molten chocolate, though, and the vats of the stuff were well-sealed. Health regulations have become rather stricter since Willi Wonka’s day. I did get to see the chocolate as it churned through its sealed glass and steel chamber, on its way to being pressed into little sea-horse moulds. The sea-horse, with its tail curled in the opposite direction to nature, was a logical development of Guylian’s other famous motif, the seashell. This began when Guy and Liliane Foubert (Guylian is a combination of their first names), who set up the business in 1960, wanted to push up their sales figures for the summer months, when interest in chocolate is not so great. They thought “seashells = summer”, but while the bright idea did nothing much to raise sales of chocolate in the hot months, it ensured that Guylian stood out in the crowded marketplace of Belgian chocolate. The seashells are still made to the original recipe, and are sold round the world in phenomenal quantities – while Guylian is still a family business, run by Guy and Liliane’s daughter, Dominique. The shells, like the sea-horses, are made of fine Belgian chocolate filled with hazelnut praline. The beans for the chocolate come from West Africa, and the hazelnuts, the price of which has tripled over the last two years, come from the eastern Mediterranean.
Chocolaterei Guylian: www.guylian-choc.com
If you have chocolate that has melted or softened, never put it in the fridge, says Philip Bogaert of Guylian. Going from hot to cold gives it ‘temperature shock’ and this causes the cocoa butter to bloom over the surface, giving the chocolate that nasty grayish look. The humidity in the fridge also causes the sugar to bloom – the water vaporizes it and it crystallizes over the surface of the chocolate. The taste remains unaffected but the appearance is completely spoiled. Instead, take your chocolate to the coolest room of the house, and if you absolutely must chill it in the fridge, wrap it in plenty of newspaper and put it in the vegetable drawer at the bottom.
Belgian chocolate ranks as the world’s finest, and Brussels is a dream destination for those who love chocolate. The Place du Grand Salon is the public shop-window for some of the best chocolatiers in Belgium (and hence, the world), including Pierre Marcolini, which has a chocolate fountain in the window. If you’re in Brussels, book a chocolate walking-tour through La Fonderie (www.lafonderie.be) or go to a chocolate demonstration at Planete Chocolat (www.planetechocolat.be). Some of the best known Belgian chocolatiers are Godiva, Neuhaus, Guylian, and Leonidas, which was set up by a Greek. At the very highest end of the market there are boutique chocolatiers like Pierre Marcolini, which sells itself as ‘the best chocolatier in the world’.
