TasteTrip
Choc around the clock (page 2)
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"IT TAKES SEVEN DAYS to make a jelly
bean,” yells Dot Gullison, my guide on a
tour of the newly minted Ganong factory,
opened in 1990 on the aptly named
Chocolate Drive to replace the company's
first plant. Behind her, about a dozen noisy
copper drums spin and polish the beans.
The room smells like strawberry but
sounds like main street during rush hour.
The company manufactures an assortment
of confections, part of contract arrangements
with Sunkist and Laura Secord.
I spy flats of blue gummi whales and
black licorice-flavoured Martians around
me. I tear myself away from my Willy
Wonka fantasies and scurry past towering
bags of icing sugar to catch up with the
hairnet set. More than 4,000 people will don
blue headgear to tour the
factory floor this week, their
only chance to do so until
next year's Chocolate Fest
rolls around.
Fudge frolics
Sample the sweet stuff at four other
chocolate festivals in Canada
West Coast Chocolate Festival, Coquitlam, B.C.
This mid-October bash features a Chocolate
Trail of 32 Vancouver-area chocolatiers, curious
events pairing chocolate with beer and
Scotch, a Chocolate Poetry Contest and a series
of "guided samplings.” www.chocolatefestival.ca
Chocolate Festival Week, Toronto
Canada's newest cocoa celebration debuted
last October with The Chocolate Ball, set to
live Cuban music, an Ultimate Chocolate Spa
Party featuring five chocolate-themed treatments, from massage to aromatherapy, and
Chocolicious, which challenges Toronto restaurateurs
to prepare chocolate-infused menus.
www.chocolatefestivalweek.com
Salon Passion Chocolat & de la Gourmandise,
Montréal
Twenty of Quebec's best chocolate artists gather
in November to demonstrate their talent during
this three-day event. Check out the Wedding
Cake Competition, and grab a drink at the
Chocolat Bar. www.salonpassionchocolat.com
Fête du chocolat, Bromont, Que.
Seventy-five kilometres east of Montréal, the
town of Bromont is serious about chocolate.
Visitors to last year's festival took 5,000 bites
out of Quebec's largest chocolate bar, while
edible sculptures, tastings and top chocolatiers
sweetened the deal. www.feteduchocolat.ca
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In the chocolate-wrap
room, double-dip cherries
are getting a second shower.
In the boxing room, a long
conveyor belt carries chocolate
pieces to workers, who
fill boxes Lucille Ball-style.
Over by the flow wrapper,
chocolate-covered marshmallow
witches are being
enrobed in foil packaging in preparation for Halloween. Gullison, who
works the flow wrapper when she's not
giving tours, leads the group past crates
marked "almond swirl” and "espresso” destined
for boxes of the company's signature
Delecto brand. The sugary smell permeates
my pores, and I think a stroll through
the factory is at least as good as a spa treatment.
As we approach the hand-dipping
room, I ask Gullison what her favourite
is. "I'm not really much of a chocolateeater,”
she says, "but I eat anything that
has mint in it.”
Later in the day, I make my way to the
town square, a block from the banks of
the St. Croix River. Four workstations are set up, and a line of children in aprons
and hairnets has formed for the hand-dip
contest, a festival tradition.
Before the dawn of mass production, all
Ganong chocolates were made by hand by
a team of 300 women who
trained for three to five years to
develop the finely honed technique
of wrapping candy centres
in silky milk chocolate (more
chocolate than you'll get on
a machine-made piece, they
insist) and, with the flick of a
wrist, putting a finishing swirl
on top. Today, there are only four
hand-dippers, who produce
about 20 percent of Ganong
chocolates, their wares available
only at the Ganong Chocolatier
Shoppe in St. Stephen or by
mail order. The remaining 80 percent are
made in the giant machines that fill the
factory and are sold in Wal-Marts and
Shoppers Drug Marts across the country,
mostly around Christmastime. And only at
Christmas will you find the company's trademark
Chicken Bones, cinnamon-flavoured,
chocolate-filled hard candies at the centre
of Maritime tradition.
"It's all in the swirl, Ben. It's all in the
swirl,” Jeff Sponagle calls out to his fiveyear-
old son, who plants two palms down
in the chocolate, as if he's making mud
pies. As Ben lifts his hands, the gooeyness
drips down to his elbows, and he begins to
lick. "Don't worry,” Sponagle assures the
hand-dipping master at Ben's side. "That's
the cleanest he's been all week.”
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