We Love Budapest: What makes any bonbon high-quality?
Gábor Vanya: This is something that needs to be decided by the consumer. For experts, there are several ways. Ours is to present clean and easily identifiable flavours. I believe high-quality chocolate needs no explanation, whether it’s a bonbon or a bar of chocolate. If you have to suggest which flavours the consumers should taste, it’s a lost cause.
WLB: Looking at the counter, your idea of a clean flavour is quite expansive.
GV: The complete assortment at MyChoccy includes about 200 flavours, 100-130 of which are presented under the counter. Some focus on one single flavour but we occasionally combine them, too. We always make sure not to feature more than two or three flavours in one bonbon, though. We only mix them if they make each other more prominent rather than suppress each other’s flavour.
Vivian Vanya: We tried bonbons with four to five flavours before. You can taste elements, but can’t really tell them apart. It’s like figuring out the Tower of Babel.
GV: Purity is our watchword. In everything, everywhere. When you eat a piece of cake, for instance, you should be able to decode the chocolate and the sponge. I’m quite sensitive about the former. Many say they make the cream from high-quality chocolate but when you try it, it’s so obvious that it’s a mixture of sugar syrup, cocoa powder and butter. It’s not great when you don’t know what you’re eating.
WLB: Can the unitiated identify a clean flavour? If you put five types of raspberry in front of me, could I tell which is the right one?
GV: It might be a cliché, but you feel the quality or the difference in quality. The cream needs to be melt-in-the-mouth. When you sniff it, you should smell the fruit. If something is artificial or there’s an aroma, it’s quite obvious, especially in the aftertaste.
My master in Belgium set me on the right path with his, his father’s and his grandfather’s own recipe books, saying: ‘You’ll find everything in here, from the source to the ingredients to the technology. You can make yours like ours, but if ours are the only ones you make, your bonbons will just be cheap copies. Use these recipes as a base and find your own flavours. This is the key’.
WLB: Tasting the bonbons at MyChoccy, would your master be proud?
GV: This is exactly what happened a few years ago when Pierre was in Hungary. This was probably the greatest confirmation I’ve ever received.
WLB: Perhaps someone might taste the clean flavours but as they are unusual, they might return to more familiar treats of lower quality. One of the main aims of the gastro revolution is to change everyday preferences.
GV: A year ago we did a blind test. We asked 100 people to rate five chocolates – lower-quality ones and the real deal, criollo from Madagascar. The winner was a 60% basic chocolate. Criollo only came fourth out of the five.
But no need to worry, people have started to become wine connoisseurs, and the time for chocolate will come, too. It’s a longer process, but I can say that if you taste and understand the flavour of quality once, you never really go back.
WLB: Apart from the easily identifiable clean flavours, what makes a MyChoccy bonbon?
GV: I think we handle the chocolates and the fillings a bit differently to others. For a long time, the right thing to do was to make the cream, leave it overnight at room temperature and beat it the next day. No-one could even imagine that there were other ways to do it.
WLB: Which was your first bonbon that turned out just how you had expected?
GV: The raspberry one. Above 45 degrees, the evaporating water starts making flavours and aromas disappear, so it wasn’t easy to get a really strong flavour. I have a vacuum technologist friend to thank.
WLB: Which is the most popular flavour now?
GV: Passion fruit and pomegranate.
WLB: No vegetables?
GV: We rarely make these kind, but we have two onion chocolates with a peanut base and roasted onions. I made them a few years ago after a friend said ‘you can’t make a bonbon from onions’. You taste the peanut first, but afterwards you feel like you’ve eaten a whole onion dish.
WLB: Are there other trends you see emerging?
GV: Bean to bar (when the expert oversees the whole process from purchasing the cocoa beans to making the chocolate – Ed.) is really popular, which is a positive development but with some negative effects. It feels a bit like other ways are frowned upon.
WLB: You mean, ‘If you don’t have your own cocoa beans, you can’t produce quality?’
GV: Yes. On the contrary, I say that anyone who makes craft chocolate creates quality in their own way. We could highlight any chocolate manufacturer and say they are the non plus ultra, but I think that wouldn’t be true. One is not better than the other, just different and that’s alright.
WLB: And how you eat a bonbon doesn’t really matter, does it?
GV: Bonbons have one purpose: to bring joy. Who am I to tell anyone how to attain it? I can share my own way of tasting with anyone , but I still recommend that they devour the chocolate however they please and however they enjoy it the most.
MyChoccy
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