Cocoa is the main ingredient of the world’s most popular treat and provides a livelihood for millions of Africans and South Americans.
A collaboration between Mars Inc, USDA, IBM, NCGR, Clemson Indiana and Washington State Universities and HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology has just helped sequencing the genome of the cacao tree (over 35,000 genes identified). This major advancement will enable more efficient research and speed up the breeding process and its quality, thereby expediting the release of superior cultivated varieties of cacao. USDA officials confirm it does not involve genetic engineering but rather significantly improves the old, laborious way of breeding trees. For example, we could now extract the DNA of a cocoa tree and find out if its genes make it disease resistant and then replicate them. In the future, we could also make naturally tastier chocolate by replicating the ideal fatty acid trait during breeding (one of the keys to cocoa flavor)…
The main aim of the cacao genome sequence is to produce superior crops in terms of yield and social benefits without involving genetically modified organisms (GMO). Farmers in West Africa, which represent some 70% of the world’s cocoa production, have at times lost half of their crop due to diseases or drought, having terrible economic and social consequences on local economies (Ghana, Ivory Coast) and impact on global cocoa price and supply. Now, less natural resources will be needed because yields will be higher and steadier and soil less depleted.
If you follow fashion and beauty, you know about Model Latina. Started in Miami, Model Latina is the Latin equivalent of America’s Next Top Model. This season, Model Latina moves to NYC! Savorique is sponsoring the show and we sent our best gourmet gifts to Model Latina’s studio. You will see them in the kitchen and throughout the studio, in all episodes right from the show’s premiere on 8/2 on SiTV. Tell us what you think of the show this season on this blog! You will find all the product on our Model Latina page…
Once in a while I come into a great food store worth mentioning on this blog. This weekend I passed by a very nice looking store on 23rd St in New York. I have been meaning to enter for quite a while, but was always on my way to something else. That time, I chose to stop and spend some time there. I was rewarded by incredibly fresh and yummy macarons.
La Maison du Macaron is located at 132 West 23rd Street, around 6th avenue. As soon as you enter, you feel like you stepped into a quiet living room from the bustling street. It’s a very relaxing place, with an upscale plush feel. They serve coffee and pastries, as well as many flavors of macaroons. I chose all kinds of berry, fruit, and chocolate flavors, but my favorites were Cassis and Sea-Salt Caramel. They’re not cheap at $2.50 a piece, but very much worth it!
Moroccan women gather in cooperative to extract the coveted oil from argan seeds.
To access social dignity and economic integration, local women in the arid Southwest Essaouira region of Morocco founded a female-exclusive cooperation to capitalize on their “liquid gold’s” know-how. Besides generating income for poor women, the cooperation contributes to environment protection since its members help replant argan trees. The argan forest provides a “green curtain” against the relentless desertification. Moreover, the community is an outstanding marriage of traditional skills and progress. The difficult, time-consuming and century-old extraction techniques have been put to sustainable economic use. The tree has medicinal properties, its oil both nourishes and beautifies and the final argan oil product is being sold on their own website and throughout the world.
The techniques of argan oil extraction are ancestral
There you have an inspiring illustration of successful local community involvement that actually goes beyond fair trade and helps the economic activity to take off while protecting the environment. We are proud to carry argan oil and promote their business.
The American Heart Association has just published a survey revealing that “40% of American adults would not accept payment to forgo their favorite foods”. And it would take a $100,000 payment for another half of respondents to give up their comfort foods or treats.
We know how hard it is to resist chocolate so here is a review of what’s new, affordable and yummy at Savorique.
These alcoholic chocolate truffles come in Champagne, Cognac, Bourbon, Port flavors
These affordable gourmet chocolate truffles come in a great wooden box, perfect for a corporate gift
One of the chocolate truffle uses theobroma Cupuaçu. It is a sister of theobroma cacao, it is a tropical rainforest tree related to cacao. The fruit tastes like passion fruit and that is why it is named the Passion Collection
These toffee bars are a blend of dark or milk chocolate blanketed in toffee covered almonds or toffee covered cashews, then drizzled in white chocolate
No man-made food triggers more passion than chocolate. No food processed by human brings so many health benefits. Four critical steps are necessary to make the healthy chocolate you crave:
Fermented cocoa beans are roasted, shelled, and shattered into nibs or large fragments.
Heated nibs are crushed in a large mill to form a thick, dark brown paste, also called chocolate liquor (This paste is the basis of all chocolate product). Further processing of this liquor will determinate the type, quality, and flavor of the resulting chocolate.
When subjected to large amount of pressure, the chocolate liquor can be separated into cocoa powder and cocoa butter,an amber-colored oil.
Some extra cocoa butter, sugar and chocolate liquor are mixed, heated up and stirred in a conching machine for several days. You’ve got chocolate at the end.
Quality of resulting chocolate depends on the ingredients as well as the timing of the conching. The longer the chocolate is being conched, the smoother, silkier, shinier it is. Long conching also helps further develop aroma thanks to prolonged stirring and aeration.
We wanted to follow-up on our previous blog post about a few unknown facts on honeybees, beehive and its beekeeper by sharing this 12 minute documentary on Colony Collapse Disorder and its critical impact on biodiversity. We urge you not to miss minute 3:30 of the second part of this CBS “60 minutes” program aired in 2007 to make up your mind the right way.
A picture of snowed-in beehives taken by beekeeper Marina Marchese of Red Bee Honey triggered many questions about the bees’ life and survival during harsh winters, which may have crossed your mind too, such as can bees survive blizzard? We interviewed Marina with a few simple questions to get a clue…
Snow-covered beehives!
Why do bees make honey? What’s their purpose?
Honeybees make honey from the nectar of flowers, it is their source of carbohydrates for adults’ as well as young bees’ diet. Honeybees will hoard honey and will continue to make honey as long as nectar is available and there is room to store it inside their hive. (NOTE: Pollen is moved by bees initiating pollination and is their source of protein).
When do bees gather pollen/nectar, for how long? When in the year is honey then produced by bees, does it exactly coincide with seasons?
During any given season many different plants produce nectar and pollen. Honeybees will begin foraging as soon as the temperature is above 50 degrees F and the flowers are blooming. Female worker bees leave the hive and begin foraging for nectar and pollen at 3 weeks old. They will make honey for as long as nectar (flowers bloom) is available and Mother Nature cooperates, meaning sunny days with temperatures above 55-60 degrees.
How far do bees fly to gather pollen/nectar?
Honeybees will fly up to 3-4 miles to find, pollen, nectar, water (and resin to make propolis).
That’s pretty far for an insect! Can bees fly and can they lose their way when there is strong wind?
The wind does interfere with the honeybees ability to fly and they are not capable of activating their flight muscles when the temperature dips below 48 degrees. It also breaks down the chemical messages called pheromones, including the one that is responsible for guiding workers back to their own hive.
When is it harvested by you the beekeeper? Are raw honey and honey comb the same?
In the Northeast we harvest honey in September (which happens to be National Honey Month), in southern regions honey often can be harvested in spring and again in fall (depending upon the nectar flow and Mother Nature).
In my opinion, honeycomb is the only truly raw honey still inside the wax, untouched just as the honeybee made it. Raw can also apply to liquid honeys, meaning unpasteurized or simply unheated. The process of producing honeycomb and liquid honey involve different techniques.
What are the factors to honey flavors?
Every honey has a unique flavor profile that depends upon the type of nectar gathered by the honeybee. The essence of a honey is dictated by the terroir (from the French word for earth), describing the unique combination of geographic location, climate, soil and temperature that give each honey its complex composition and individual personality. As in winemaking, terroir dramatically affects the flavor profiles of the honeys produced.
How many bees on average are in each of your beehives?
At the height of bee season, which is July-August here in the Northeast, a typical beehive can have 80,000 honeybees.
Who cleans up the beehive?
For the first three weeks of their short life young worker bees (females) known as “house bees” begin cleaning the hive from the minute they emerge from their cells as adults, maintaining a pristine environment to make honey. Beekeepers also pitch in and help by inspecting hives for pest and diseases.
So, what do bees do during winter?Can they die when it’s freezing cold out? Honeybees form a tight cluster inside the hive around their queen maintaining a temperature of 90 degrees throughout winter. On a warm day of 55 degrees, they may leave for a cleansing flight or to crawl to the top of a frame and uncap some honey to eat.
Honeybees are cold-blooded insects and are capable of maintaining the 90 degrees temperature inside the cluster by shivering even the coldest winters. More honeybees die of winter starvation and Varroa (see last question) rather than freezing to death.
What’s the life expectancy of a honeybee / of a bee colony?
Honeybees live approximately 6 weeks. A colony can live for many years with the help of a beekeeper who’s main job is to keep their colony pest and disease free, insure there is sufficient honey stored up for the winter and make sure there is a healthy productive queen. A colony can not survive very long without a queen.
Are bees being exploited, as per what some vegan people claim?
Honeybees are responsible for pollinating 100 different fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, oils, herbs and spices necessary in our diet. Beekeepers are considered farmers, honeybees are considered agricultural livestock and they are also affected by many pest and diseases, same as a cow or a chicken.
Varroa destructor or the Varroa parasitic mite was introduced into the US almost 30 years ago and is responsible for killing off most of the wild honeybees here in the U.S. (In otherwords, there are very few wild honeybee colonies left in nature) Varroa mites attach themselves to the body of the honeybee and suck their blood eventually killing them and the entire colony. Varroa is thought to be contributing to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) or the disappearing honeybee. Without beekeepers to inspect and manage these pest and diseases, the honeybee would cease to exist and we would be forced into hand pollinating all of our crops or most likely eating processed foods purchased in bags and boxes. Beekeepers are essential to the survival of the honeybee in these desperate times. They are tending and nurturing nature’s finest pollinators and are responsible for bringing to market the fresh produce we enjoy eating everyday. Varroa cannot be managed without the watchful eye of the beekeeper. I urge people of the world to unite to protect the honeybee and respect the work of the beekeeper, honeybees cannot survive without our help.
Honeybees are such incredible creatures… I’ve made them my life.
Savorique’s goal is to bring you new ideas, but also promote good foods and eating habits. The real killer in the US, Europe and worldwide are food-related, preventable diseases due to poor nutrition. Education starts with children, and we owe it to them to teach them the basics of food, and equip them with basic recipes that will, in the end, save their lives. Jamie Oliver went on TED to make a compelling case on why our children are less prepared than we were to stay healthy, and won a prestigious TED prize for his views and actions. See also this link.
UPDATE: Kudos to Jamie Oliver who airs a national show to make home, healthy cooking fun for all. Watch Food Revolution on ABC.
The delicious, golden, lightweight oil is extracted, traditionally by the berbers, from the rare Argania Spinosa Tree. The seed grows and is fairly traded only in one geographic location: the dry, arid plains off the coast of Southern Morocco, in a region called Essaouira.
Argan Oil is high in essential fatty acids and vitamin E, making it great for all sorts of skin conditions such as eczema, wrinkles, and dry skin. This exceptional oil is also high in phenols and carotenes. But “food-grade” argan oil is also being purchased by the ladies for cosmetic purposes since it is so rich in fatty acids (oleic). It is said to be nature’s anti aging skin food, beneficial to the skin’s overall structure and elasticity, efficient against UV exposure and in treating psoriasis as well as reducing sebum production (National Center for Biotechnology Information , U.S. National Library of Medicine). As delicious as it is healthful, Argan Oil is perfect sprinkled on salads, couscous, or with grilled fish. Moroccans have used it for bread dipping for decades, and it’s recently become one of the culinary world’s latest ‘cult’ ingredients. The slightly orange color and distinct aroma and delicate flavor makes Argan Oil a delightful replacement for truffle oil or extra virgin olive oil in any recipe.
