Let Them Eat Chocolate

by Mark Kurlansky in Travel Holiday 2/99
© Travel Holiday and Hachette Filipacchi Magazines 2/99

The French love of purity and their preference for the taste of the natural bean are the reasons behind the high percentage of cocoa bean and butter in better French chocolates (60-85%). Christian Constant, who remarked, "I always say a beautiful woman does not need makeup", uses <up to> 80% pure cocoa bean and butter in his chocolate confections... Christian Constant chocolates are "small, delicate," perfumed with "exotic spices or teas," "striking in intensity, yet the chocolate coating around each filling is almost as thin as tissue."

http://www.discoverfrance.net/France/News/Eat_chocolate.shtml

Netscape destination guides, extracted from travelocity.com

Christian Constant's shop is established in 1970 after its grander competitors. The shop is "unpretentious & charming." The chocolates feature scents of spices and flowers and herbs usually used for tea.

Tips on Food and Cooking

This article cites Christian Constant and Maison du Chocolats as two addresses for REAL chocolates.

http://perso.club-internet.fr/hwelty/France/TipsFood.html

Johnny's chocolates and pralines survival (page4).

Christian Constant is "a small producer" whose chocolate has been rated by Chantal Coady as being "the very best quality available."(Coady, Chantal (1995): The Chocolate Companion: A Connoisseur's Guide to the World's Finest Chocolates. (New York: Simon & Schuster, ISBN 0-684-80374-7), 192 pp.

Pithily written and beautifully illustrated. Much of the information on this page was gleaned from this book. In reading her tasting opinions (which she fully admits are personal and subjective), you should know that she ``[does] not like excessively sweet chocolates.'' Unfortunately, this book is now out-of-print, but you can still try Amazon.com.

http://www.atmos.ucla.edu/~jlin/chocolates/

Paris Anytime, FOODTALK

Christian Constant is one of the city's better pastry chefs, and his pristine windows are full of modern, simple, straightforward creations. I love his ultra-bitter tarte au chocolat, almost black in color with a rich chocolate sablet crust and smooth, mouth-filling interior. A great lemon tart cannot be beat, and Constant's lemon meringue version is all it should be: properly golden and tart, with a firm, crisp crust. All pastries and chocolates can be sampled in the small tea salon in this all white and black shop. This site quotes Patricia Well’s book.

By LAURANN CLARIDGE
Copyright 2000 Houston Chronicle, Sept. 20, 2000, 9:44AM

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/foodtalk/archive/648227

If you have to make a present during your stay in Paris, think to chocolates. Always appreciated when they are high-quality-home-made it´s also a delicate attention. This small familial chocolate shop make excellent one.

The Global Hangoverguide | Paris-7th arrondissement-...

http://www.hangoverguide.com/out/fr/paris/7arr.html

Mad about Chocolate
by Stephanie Curtis

"Chocolate has never been better," exclaims Christian Constant, owner of the Paris chocolate shop that bears his name. "Today, techniques are at their height, the master recipe that marries the ordinary Forastero bean with the fine Criollo bean is familiar to all connoisseurs." Nevertheless, he adds that the quality of European chocolate in general could suffer due to new Common Market regulations authorizing the use of vegetable fat in chocolate, a practice currently prohibited in France.

As in so many matters relating to gastronomy, the French government strictly legislates the production of chocolate. Regulations prohibit the use of any vegetable or animal fat in French chocolate: Only pure cocoa butter is authorized. In addition, French chocolates must contain at least 43 percent cocoa liquor, and a minimum of 26 percent pure cocoa butter. Most French chocolates now contain well above the government's minimum of cocoa liquor. The best bonbons boast up to 80 percent of this rich, dark substance. And since it is the cocoa liquor that imparts the taste to all chocolates, it's not surprising that French chocolates have a remarkably intense flavor.

The flavor nuances of French chocolate also depend on the quality and origin of the cocoa beans used to make it. The best chocolates are an artful blend of four or more different beans, each with its own flavor, force and persistance -- each from a different geographical origin: Venezuela, Brazil, the Ivory Coast, Madagascar. Robert Linxe, owner of Paris' Maison du Chocolat, elaborates on the characteristics of different cocoa beans as a vintner praises the qualities of different grape varieties and "crus."

A heightened understanding of different "crus" of beans has spurred a trend in recent years toward labeling chocolates by the origin of their predominate bean. For the real chocolate connoisseur, the appellations "dark chocolate" and "milk chocolate" seem as vague as "red wine" and "white wine." Fans of French chocolate now look for references such as "Guanaja", "Manjari", "Pur Caraibe" or "Guayaquil" on their chocolate bars.

http://www.sallys-place.com/food/single-articles/mad-chocolate.htm

The Bittersweet Journey

A novel about ‘love, longing and chocolate’ by Enid Futterman, has something about Constant in Chapter 8.<only table of contents given>

http://www.bittersweetjourney.com/chocolate.html