Monday 3 November 2008

Calvin chocolates for the 500th anniversary of the reformer's birth

Yesterday Dr B returned from a press conference carrying a precious box of chocolates. What is even more surprising, given the proclivities of this household, the box remains as yet unopened, the contents uneaten. It is awaiting its first photo shoot for the benefits of the ENI website. Anyway before giving away too much more about the chocolate deprivation some journalists are willing to go through for the sake of their jobs I should perhaps explain.
For the launch of the "calvin09" - 500th anniversary celebration of Calvin's birth next year - a Swiss chocolatier, Blaise Poyet, says he has tried to capture the essence of the Swiss reformer in special chocolate pralines.
Now this is the sort of theology I could really get into. Here's some more from the press release about the chocolates:
For the first layer, we took a classic praline mix, the kind that has existed for a long time, and that everyone knows. But we have "reformed" it. A praline is always smooth and runny, but we have used crunchy caramelised hazelnuts and, this is something new, we have made them slightly savoury using salt from the Swiss Alps. For the second layer, the upper layer, we wanted to present the theology of Calvin. It's not easy to represent theological ideas by using the taste buds. But the key thing for Calvin is the glory of God, his excellence, his perfection. So we chose a chocolate that we chocolatiers find exceptional, rare and flawless. It is a chocolate Grand Cru from Bolivia, 100% wild and without any additives… It is a real pleasure, paradise indeed.

So now I wonder whether people would like to think up recipes which could best represent Barth's theology of revelation, Luther's ideas of justification by faith, Moltmann's theology of hope - although I suppose I should exclude any apple recipes for Augustine's theology of original sin as a little bit too obvious.

Anyway while you're thinking about that here's the link to purchase the Calvin chocolates online: http://www.calvin09.org/shop/shop-en.html&lang=2

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