Sunday, September 22, 2013

Chocolate yesterday, chocolate tomorrow

"Earl of Sandwich Blended Frappes Long Before Starbucks," reads the headline about University of Leicester historian Kate Loveman's accidental discovery of the first English recipe for a frozen chocolate dessert:
"Prepare the chocolatti [to make a drink] ... and Then Putt the vessell that hath the Chocolatti in it, into a Jaraffa [a carafe] of snow stirred together with some salt, & shaike the snow together sometyme & it will putt the Chocolatti into tender Curdled Ice & soe eate it with spoons."
The instructions were noted in the 350-year-old diary of the first Earl of Sandwich (not the eponymous one, but his great-grandfather). The image above is from the same diary and depicts a cacao-grinder. While that was cutting edge in the 17th c., the makers of 3-D printers are turning their eyes toward food and - in particular - chocolate. Avi Reichentall of 3D Systems has already configured his machines to create cakes and candy, and wants them to become the next must-have appliance: "We are working on a chocolate printer. I want a chocolate printer in my kitchen. I want it to be as cool as a Keurig coffee maker."

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