Articles like this are fun for the name dropping curiosities you can unearth, but I do wish people weren't quite so obsessed with the "good" percentage nonsense or price consciousness. I found out I didn't generally care for anything under 60% by trial and error, but that doesn't mean I'm better than my husband who includes milk and 90% (gack! gack!) chocolate in his stable of nibbling chocolate.I wish writers focused on the flavor profiles they liked and used that as framework for their discussions. There's tons of "posh" chocolate of excellent quality that leave me cold, but that's certainly not their fault. My husband adores Domori which I feel like is a "punch-in-the-mouth" chocolate. I like Marcolini which he has likened to battery acid. The difference is the fun part of eating and talking about it! Why waste that fun judging and mean-spirited arguing? (the good-natured arguing is still enjoyable, of course- I found the battery acid comment incessantly amusing) Writers seem so eager to set themselves apart they see disparaging the differences in chocolate -- percentage, bean, country, or price -- as the only path. To what end?

I don't see any segregation in the FDA language for chocolate between "solids and fats."The FDA certainly talks about fat percentages, but it isn't clear that they are, therefore, saying that fat is not a solid. The clearest language that I've seen, which admittedly doesn't use the term "cocoa solid," is:"chocolate liquor is the solid or semiplastic food prepared by finely grinding cacao nibs. The fat content of the food may be adjusted by adding one or more of the optional ingredients specified in paragraph (b)(1) of this section to the cacao nibs. chocolate liquor contains not less than 50 percent nor more than 60 percent by weight of cacao fat as determined by the method prescribed in 163.5(b)." http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/SCRIPTs/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?fr=163.111&SearchTerm=chocolate For context, the optional ingredients referred to here are cocoa butter and cocoa powder. The chocolate liquor, cocoa butter and all, is referred to as a "solid food." So, unless anyone else can add FDA legalese that impacts the matter, the US definition doesn't seem to contradict what Sam has noted from the EU definitions.

In case you sell your "posh" chocolate in the UK this will be heartening...! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/5141003/Easter-2009-Why-posh-chocolate-is-recession-proof.html
updated by @susie: 12/13/24 12:16:07