Go ahead, cocoa's good for your soul

By now, we’ve all heard that chocolate is actually good for you. Chocolate and cocoa are full of cancer-fighting antioxidants called flavonoids; and they can lower your blood pressure and reduce the risk of stroke.

That’s the good news.

The bad news for cocoa fans: Milk apparently blocks your body’s ability to access all those benefits. That’s, in part, why white chocolate and milk chocolate are not included on the list of health-giving sweets.  (There’s also all that butterfat and sugar, of course.)

Nonetheless, this column will now share a recipe for making hot cocoa. Perverse, yes. But sometimes a soothing, warming cup of cocoa is just what your body needs.

In America, we generally serve our sugary cocoa with other sugary substances: marshmallows, whipped cream, cookies.

In Latin America, cocoa is treated more as an alternative to hot coffee. It is served in the afternoon, “at tea time,� explained Marily McDowd, a native of South America who recently opened Latinos Unidos in the center of North Canaan. The shop caters to transplants from all the Latin nations (especially Mexico and Colombia). And in addition to food, she sells specialized cooking equipment.

Arrayed on one shelf are three sizes of tall aluminum pots designed just for cooking Latin cocoa. These pans are called chocolateras and range in price from $4.99 for 1.5 liters to $6.99 for 5 liters.

They are tall, McDowd explained, so you can first mash the blocks of chocolate and then whisk the cocoa into a froth without spilling any of it over the sides onto your stovetop. The mashing and whisking are done with a tool called a molinillo, which looks a little like a honeydripper with a long wooden handle. You can use a wooden spoon for the mashing, and a whisk for the frothing; but if you make cocoa a lot, you can see how it would be more convenient to have one tool that does both jobs.

At her shop, McDowd carries enticing little towers of hexagonal chocolates from Colombia and Mexico. Some are sweetened, some are not, some have added flavoring such as cloves and cinnamon. There is even sugar-free cocoa powder with Splenda.

“All these cocoas are cholesterol-free and not fatty,� McDowd added.

In the Latin nations, she said, “chocolate time is in the afternoon. And people often put a white cheese into their cocoa. It’s a little like mozzarella, and it melts in the cocoa. People use it the way Americans use marshmallows.�

Instead of cookies, Latinos and Latinas often nibble on salty little cheese biscuits called bunuelos.

The chocolates cost between $2.69 and $3. McDowd warns that they are hard to break off; you have to crack them against the edge of a counter or use a heavy knife to cut them along their seams.

Latinos Unidos is at 10 Railroad St. in North Canaan, 860-824-7457. The hours are 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. from Monday to Friday and from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday.

                                                                       Cocoa Latino

1 cup milk

2-3 triangles of Latin chocolate

Put the milk and triangles of chocolate in a chocolatera or tall saucepan. The chocolate will begin to dissolve in the milk as it heats up, about 3 minutes. Help it along by crushing it against the sides of the pan with a wooden spoon or a molinillo. Once the chocolate is melted completely, about 5 minutes, use a whisk to make the cocoa frothy. If you use a molinillo, twist it rapidly between your fingertips, as if you were a Boy Scout making a fire in the wild, or as if you were spinning an old-fashioned wooden top.

An older Latina woman once told McDowd that the secret to good cocoa is to froth it three times. Whisk it up once, let the froth settle, repeat twice more and then whisk it one more time for good measure just before serving.

This chocolate stays hot for a very long time, McDowd warned. Be careful you don’t burn your mouth.

Latest News

South Kent School’s unofficial March reunion

Elmarko Jackson was named a 2023 McDonald’s All American in his senior year at South Kent School. He helped lead the Cardinals to a New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) AAA title victory and was recruited to play at the University of Kansas. This March he will play point guard for the Jayhawks when they enter the tournament as a No. 4 seed against (13) Samford University.

Riley Klein

SOUTH KENT — March Madness will feature seven former South Kent Cardinals who now play on Division 1 NCAA teams.

The top-tier high school basketball program will be well represented with graduates from each of the past three years heading to “The Big Dance.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hotchkiss grads dancing with Yale

Nick Townsend helped Yale win the Ivy League.

Screenshot from ESPN+ Broadcast

LAKEVILLE — Yale University advanced to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament after a buzzer-beater win over Brown University in the Ivy League championship game Sunday, March 17.

On Yale’s roster this year are two graduates of The Hotchkiss School: Nick Townsend, class of ‘22, and Jack Molloy, class of ‘21. Townsend wears No. 42 and Molloy wears No. 33.

Keep ReadingShow less
Handbells of St. Andrew’s to ring out Easter morning

Anne Everett and Bonnie Rosborough wait their turn to sound notes as bell ringers practicing to take part in the Easter morning service at St. Andrew’s Church.

Kathryn Boughton

KENT—There will be a joyful noise in St. Andrew’s Church Easter morning when a set of handbells donated to the church some 40 years ago are used for the first time by a choir currently rehearsing with music director Susan Guse.

Guse said that the church got the valuable three-octave set when Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center closed in the late 1980s and the bells were donated to the church. “The center used the bells for music therapy for younger patients. Our priest then was chaplain there and when the center closed, he brought the bells here,” she explained.

Keep ReadingShow less
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Penguin Random House

‘Picasso’s War” by Foreign Affairs senior editor Hugh Eakin, who has written about the art world for publications like The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The New York Times, is not about Pablo Picasso’s time in Nazi-occupied Paris and being harassed by the Gestapo, nor about his 1937 oil painting “Guernica,” in response to the aerial bombing of civilians in the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.

Instead, the Penguin Random House book’s subtitle makes a clearer statement of intent: “How Modern Art Came To America.” This war was not between military forces but a cultural war combating America’s distaste for the emerging modernism that had flourished in Europe in the early decades of the 20th century.

Keep ReadingShow less