Wednesday 25/04
Vlog by Isabelle (about the ‘bean-to-bar workshop in the Choco Museum): See below.
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By me:
Wake up at 7am.
Kids do 2 sessions of homeschooling this morning.
Isabelle is going to have a coffee with Giselda, a Peruvian friend of Anne who lives in Lima.
For lunch, we go to ‘El Rincon de Bigote’, on foot, to (finally) eat a good ceviche, one of langostinos and the other with normal fish. As starter, we also try the specialty, the almejas in su concha (marinated clams), with a side o crisp yucca fries.
At 2:30pm, we have a 2-hour ‘bean to bar’ workshop at the Choco Museo (in Calle Berlin), which I book online yesterday. It looks like a nice and interesting experience to learn the history of chocolate making in connections to the Inca culture.
In the “museum”, there is an interesting poster showing where the chocolate is grown and where it is consumed in the world.
The guide first gives us a brief step-by-step guide on how chocolate is made, from the bean to the bar. Then we move to the “kitchen” where we experiment with several of the steps. We start by preparing 3 types of drinks like the Maya and Conquistadores used to: cacao tea, (Mayan) hot chocolate and (European) hot chocolate. Afterwards, we roast the cocoa beans, separate them from their exterior shell, grind the cocoa nibs into a paste (on a metate with a mano), and then refine the cocoa paste in a melangeur.
The workshop culminated in each of us concocting our own custom chocolate bars, with we could fill with a large selection of ingredients. We could be as imaginative as possible as there was everything from chili to marshmallows… The kids select their ingredients that mostly include m&m’s (but also coconut powder, Oreo crush and cacao nibs), while the adults choose rather the maca powder (Isabelle), ginger, cacao nibs and salt (but also m&m’s and gummy bears for me + some plain ones).
This was a great hands-on workshop, starting from the cocoa tree from the Peruvian jungle to the finished product passing by every step of the whole chocolate-making process (and even learning the origin of chocolate and its history). It was not too long but it nevertheless gives us the chance to learn about how coco is grown, harvested, and produced. It’s nice to find an activity that the whole family enjoys. See also Isabelle’s video above.
We wait for our chocolate to be “ready” (i.e. cooled).
We come back home around 5:30pm.
We had no energy to go to the Barrio Barranco. I must say that the fact that we have another week in Lima (after our itinerant trip in the Andes) doesn’t give too much incentive to go.
We eat a salad for dinner and then play ‘Loup Garou’.
We also try the chocolates that we made this afternoon; they are actually quite good. We all enjoy.
I continue the preparation of the Peru trip, till 1am.
