The Southern East of Sicily is a region rich ofexcellent quality agricultural products and slow food products, it is worth a visit not only to admire its splendid Baroque-style monuments, but also to taste its delicacies, including the Modica chocolate.
Famous all over the world, it owes its uniqueness to a grainy and crumbly texture and a rough appearance that preserves all the characteristics of cocoa intact.
The origin dates back to the Spanish domination in Sicily, in that time Modica was the capital of a county, once the largest in the Kingdom
of Sicily. Around 1519 they imported the first cocoa beans having learned their excellent qualities and economic riches, and they established a real trade.
The Spanish learned from the Aztecs, one of the old civilization Central America. For these civilizations , chocolate assumed an important meaning because it was considered a medicine, but it was also an index of well-being and wealth and a means of communicating with their divinities. They used it dissolved in water as a liquid drink, Xocoatl, which gave energy and vigor. The Spanish added sugar.
The cocoa beans were processed using the "Metate", a type of curved stone grinder resting on two transverse bases, used for
processing seeds and cereals. While in Europe it passed to industrial production, in Modica it continued to be an artisanal product.
How is chocolate made?
The cocoa mass, obtained from roasted and ground seeds, and not deprived of cocoa butter, is heated in a water bath, to make it fluid, at a temperature not exceeding 40 degrees.
This particular type of processing called "cold" allows to maintain the characteristics of the cocoa unaltered. It is mixed with sugar, without merging into it; in fact the sugar crystals with such a low processing temperature remain intact.
Spices such as cinnamon, vanilla, chilli, ginger, or with orange and lemon peels are added. At this temperature the sugar crystals do not dissolve and give a grainy texture.
The flavor of Modica chocolate is unique Sciascia called it “archetype”, because chocolate arrived in Sicily and above all in the county of Modica before anywhere in Europe, after Spain.
The chocolate has a very dark and rustic color, you immediately notice the rough appearance and the rough grain inside the bars. It has an uneven brown color, the aroma is that of roasted cocoa.