Let’s start with my indulgence, and which is also that of many people, chocolate… And it’s now or never to dispel prejudices like, “it was the Swiss who invented chocolate”, so that Chocolate was born in Bayonne, in the Basque country!
But milk chocolate is indeed a Swiss invention! It all started with a certain Henri Nestlé, pharmacist and chemist, born in Frankfurt, Germany, at the beginning of the 19th century. Based in Vevey, Switzerland, he has a keen interest in the preservation of milk, and he invents a process to transform it into milk flour, intended for babies. By chance, Henri Nestlé has an entrepreneur as a neighbor who has just opened his own chocolate factory. He tries in vain to incorporate powdered milk into his chocolate, until Nestlé comes to his aid. In 1875, the first chocolate bar with milk is made in Switzerland!
Also in the 19th century, Rudolf Lindt in turn opened a chocolate factory in Bern in 1879. He immediately created and patented an unprecedented process, which was intended to remove acidity and bitterness from chocolate. The goal is above all to obtain a more homogeneous texture, because for centuries, chocolate was grainy and irregular, because of the fibers and residues of cocoa bean envelopes.
The process invented by Lindt is called conching. : the cocoa paste will circulate for 72 hours on a kind of flat granite bed, with curved ends, and undergo the friction of mechanical rollers! The chocolate becomes smooth and perfectly melting, a revolution for the time! Since then, tradition as much as permanent innovation and daring have become, the signature of the Swiss chocolate industry.
Whether or not they finish on the podium, I bet you that the sprinters will take advantage of their visit to stock up on good tablets!