AT HOME: The Seductiveness of Chocolate
An unlikely source explains the real reason we celebrate Valentine's Day.
By Loraine Page
COLUMNIST
There's something deeply sensual about Valentine's Day chocolates, outside of having received them from a romantic partner.
It feels so good to savor a piece in your mouth. Do you ever wonder why? Maybe you think it has something to do with sugar, the ultimate sin.
No. It's the other ultimate sin — fat. The buttery, gloppy, melty element in some foods that satisfies like nothing else.
I know it's the fat because of a journal article I read a couple of years ago. One of my freelance jobs requires me to write brief summations recapping new scientific studies in language anyone can understand.
This particular article described experiments on how chocolate produces the melt-in-the-mouth sensation we're all familiar with.
It made an impression on me. Actually, it changed how I eat chocolate. Prior to reading it, I was a neophyte "give me anything with nuts in it" type of chocolate consumer. Though at the time I was trying small bites of dark chocolate, which showed some growth.
With Valentine's Day on the horizon, I thought I'd share what I read, briefly, of course.
But first, I wondered if people were still eating chocolates on Valentine's Day. An informal poll of folks in the area and in my close circle showed that, yes, they certainly are.
Some have more sophisticated taste than others. For instance, a 15-year-old girl likes Ferrero Rocher Hazelnut Chocolates and Lindor, and her 16-year-old boyfriend prefers chocolate-covered cherries. Others eat anything in the heart-shaped box assortment, though some of them hunt first for the ones with nuts or caramel inside.
The scientific paper was published in a journal called ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. Don't run screaming away, I'm not going to send you to it. It was written by a team of interdisciplinary scientists from the University of Leeds in England.
Their task: create an engineering method that would enable manufacturers to produce a next generation of chocolate — one that is delicious and melt-in-your mouth but contains no or little fat, thereby appealing to the strictly health-conscious consumer.
Whether they succeeded or not, I don't recall.
What I haven't forgotten is they worked with luxury dark chocolate and a fake mouth. Replete with tongue and palate. They were proud of their fabricated three-dimensional creation, calling it their "best approximation so far to a real tongue-palate."
So, they fed the chocolate into the fake mouth and watched carefully, taking notes along the way, I assume.
The set-up was meant to help them understand the mechanical process of chocolate melting in a mouth, or on a tongue. The following explains that process, and is something you can think about next time you place a piece of chocolate in your human mouth.
As it is eaten, chocolate changes from a solid into a smooth emulsion that feels very good. During its moments in the mouth, the “chocolate sensation” arises from the way the chocolate is lubricated, either from ingredients in the chocolate itself or from saliva, or a combination of the two.
Fat plays a key function almost immediately when a piece of chocolate is in contact with the tongue. After that, solid cocoa particles are released and they become important in terms of the tactile sensation.
The fat in chocolate, no matter its percentage, will form droplets in the mouth, and that is what gives a person the chocolate sensation. It is the actual location of the fat in the make-up of the particular chocolate that matters in each stage of lubrication.
To determine how the feel and texture of chocolate occur, a series of tests were conducted — using the dark chocolate on an artificial three-dimensional tongue-like surface.
The techniques they used were from a field of engineering called tribology, which is only about how surfaces and fluids interact, the levels of friction between them, and the role of lubrication — in this case saliva or liquids from the chocolate.
One more thing:
When chocolate is in contact with the tongue, it releases a fatty film that coats the tongue and other surfaces in the mouth. It is this fatty film that makes the chocolate feel smooth throughout the entire time it is in the mouth.
I don't know where that fake tongue is anymore, though the Leeds scientists mentioned something about possibly using it to test other foods in the future.
But after experiencing the sensuality of chocolate, I don't think that tongue will be too keen on anything else.
Local Obituaries
To view local obituaries or to send a note to family and loved ones, please visit the link that follows.
Support Award-winning, Locally Focused Journalism
The FXBG Advance cuts through the talking points to deliver both incisive and informative news about the issues, people, and organizations that daily affect your life. And we do it in a multi-partisan format that has no equal in this region. Over the past year, our reporting was:
First to break the story of Stafford Board of Supervisors dismissing a citizen library board member for “misconduct,” without informing the citizen or explaining what the person allegedly did wrong.
First to explain falling water levels in the Rappahannock Canal.
First to detail controversial traffic numbers submitted by Stafford staff on the Buc-ee’s project
Our media group also offers the most-extensive election coverage in the region and regular columnists like:
And our newsroom is led by the most-experienced and most-awarded journalists in the region — Adele Uphaus (Managing Editor and multiple VPA award-winner) and Martin Davis (Editor-in-Chief, 2022 Opinion Writer of the Year in Virginia and more than 25 years reporting from around the country and the world).
For just $8 a month, you can help support top-flight journalism that puts people over policies.
Your contributions 100% support our journalists.
Help us as we continue to grow!
This article is published under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND. It can be distributed for noncommercial purposes and must include the following: “Published with permission by FXBG Advance.”