For three days, chocolate was the star of a food festival where pastry
cooks mixed with curious and hungry visitors.
During the opening night on Thursday (May 14), eighty Belgian pastry
cooks joined forces to display a dazzling line of pralines.
10,000 pralines were needed to form the 25 metre line, which quickly
disappeared as visitors picked and chose which chocolate to take home or taste
with a glass of champagne.
If chocolate was first discovered in Latin America, the praline was
invented in Belgium by Jean Neuhaus, organisers of the event Barry Callebaut
said.
In 1912, Belgian chocolate maker Neuhaus invented a chocolate shell
that he could fill with cream or nut pastes: the praline was born.
Belgium brand Leonidas then trivialised chocolate by selling it at a
lower prices through window sales.
And a few years later, Belgium also invented the chocolate bar by
reducing the size of chocolate tablets, organisers said.
As a result, the sales of Belgian chocolate rapidly increased first on
the streets of Brussels then throughout Europe.
Belgium became one of the world’s top destination of chocolate lovers.
Another highlight of the food event was the Belgium pre-selection of
the World Chocolate Masters competition.
In Brussels, eleven pastry cooks competed to create chocolate sculpture
inspired by the theme ‘haute couture’.
Hats, bustiers, brooches, flowers — everything was made out of
chocolate and for the occasion it was painted in dark, white or covered in
golden leafs.
Pastry cooks like Christophe Museur liked the challenge.
”To create a piece, well, you let your imagination go free, you try to
create a new technique, we try to go over our boundaries, to push further,
always,” he told Reuters Television.
One of the main difficulties was to get the pieces stick together,
according to other chefs.
”The temperature, it needs to be stable, to stick together, you
shouldn’t shake, it’s delicate…” Andrien Janssens explained.
Ryan Stevenson, an Australian pastry expert who has been working in
Belgium for many years, won the Belgium competition.
20 countries are taking part in the competition with the final set to
take place in Paris in October 2009.
Duration : 0:0:43
[youtube XebzfHipKO4]
October 19th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
That looks AMAZING! …
That looks AMAZING!!!