Vegan Chocolate Is Delicious!

On this rather august October day, I had an urge to visit Central Park and so I took the A train uptown. Upon reaching the 59th street entrance, near the giant marble fountain statue, I found myself in the middle of some kind of rally. It was an event called the 2010 Walk for Farm Animals held by Farm Sanctuary, a rescue group for farm animals. The organization holds annual walks throughout the country, and Canada, to raise awareness of the atrocious treatment of farm animals and to support rescue efforts.

"Factory farming" is the latest term to describe the transmutation of the livestock industry from wide, open meadows to filthy, cramped cages. What amazes me is how these systems get put into place. It takes a lot of engineers, builders and workers to give life to such a fundamentally inhumane idea. Then there are the meat-happy consumers, whose insufferable apathy toward how the food they eat is raised and slaughtered, fuels this monstrosity of an industry.

Thankfully, as this Farm Sanctuary event proves, not everyone is a meat-eating zombie. At the event, as you would expect, there were books and t-shirts for sale at various tables set up near the park's entrance, but what caught my epicurious eye were chocolate bars.

The cost for a 2.2oz bar was $5—pricey, but considering that the entire sum would be donated to animal rescue groups, technically, the bar itself was a freebie.

Chocolate bar in hand, I scampered off to find an empty bench where I could sample this exciting treat. Would it be bland and sugary? Or bitter and funky— like some of the high cocoa-level, organic chocolate bars I've tried from Whole Foods? I was hoping for something that would at least taste as good as those World's Finest chocolate bars that high-school kids sell for charity.

I carefully opened the cardboard box, and here's what was inside:

As you can see from the left pic, it's an attractive bar of chocolate divided into neat squares. It's nicely wrapped in well-sealed plastic that is of a thick and exceptionally clear quality. Someone obviously put some thought into keeping this chocolate attractive and fresh.

No signs of the figs and nuts noted on the label, so I flipped the bar over.

WOW—Lo and behold, fruits and nuts aplenty!

There was a refined texture and vibrant flavor to this vegan chocolate—no bitterness to wrestle with, no excessive sweetness to get passed, no heavy dairy to cling to your palate. It tasted as if all the heavenly connotations of a fresh box or tin of Dutch cocoa were perfectly distilled into bar form. The fruits and nuts made it all the better.

Truth be told, I happen to be a huge fan of milk and heavy cream. Typically, I like European chocolates that are so full of milk, they almost taste like cheese. But this vegan chocolate bar actually convinced me that milk isn't a necessary ingredient for delicious chocolate.

As it turns out, this dazzling, scrumptious chocolate is made by Jean-François Bonnet, former pastry chef of Daniel, in NYC. Aha, well that makes sense, no wonder it's so good. Bonnet is now the brilliant chocolatier behind a company called Tumbador Chocolate based in Brooklyn. Unfortunately, Tumbadour doesn't have a storefront, it only sells its chocolate online.