Link to the original content [14-05-2012] : La Prior Tongerlo couronnée du Crystal Taste Award.

Les chefs ont dégusté des produits alimentaires du 15 au 17 avril. Pendant trois jours, ces spécialistes du goût ont testé toute une série de mets. En coulisse, on peut apercevoir des huiles d’olive, des vinaigres, des galettes, du riz, du miel, des olives, du jambon d’Ardenne…

Bernard Voussion, chef de l’Elysée, Jean Sabine, chef du Quai d’Orsay et d’autres chefs européens ont assisté à cet évènement.

Original Content: peopledaily.com [http://french.peopledaily.com.cn/Culture/7793937.html - 25/04/12]

Pictures by Chinanews.com

• Les Sommeliers se réuniront du 18 au 20/03/12 pour déguster toutes boissons hors vins (thés, cafés, boissons chocolatées, sodas, jus, bières, alcools…),
• Les Chefs se réuniront eux, du 15 au 17/04/12 pour déguster les produits alimentaires.

Cet événement unique dans le monde proposera quelques nouveautés :

• Pour la 1ère fois, les tests à l’aveugle se dérouleront dans une école d’hôtellerie avec la participation active des élèves.
• Des “Masters Classes” du goût sont organisés.

1000 produits alimentaires du monde entier soumis aux palais de 60 Sommeliers et 60 Chefs européens. Pour la 1ère fois à Bruxelles, du 18/03 au 17/04/12 8è édition dans le cadre de l’année de la gastronomie “Brusselicious”.

• Les Sommeliers se réuniront du 18 au 20/03/12 pour déguster toutes boissons hors vins (thés, cafés, boissons chocolatées, sodas, jus, bières, alcools…),
• Les Chefs se réuniront eux, du 15 au 17/04/12 pour déguster les produits alimentaires.

Cet événement unique dans le monde proposera quelques nouveautés :

• Pour la 1ère fois, les tests à l’aveugle se dérouleront dans une école d’hôtellerie avec la participation active des élèves.
• Des “Masters Classes” du goût sont organisés.

Source : http://www.city2.be/en/superior-taste-award-les-cesar-du-gout.html?IDC=45&IDD=12155

Here are a few excerpts from reports broadcasted on VTM, RTBF and Télé Bruxelles.

We travalled the word and culinary cultures in few months with your pictures. Now the absolute first photo contest organized by the International Taste and Quality Institute is offcially concluded. Our chefs and sommeliers were asked to choose 5 of the 15 winning photos and here are their choices.

Kitty – Rainbow Tail Prawn

Pierog – Large italian calzone pastry by Wera

Pcconsulting – Fruit Tart

Mamzellebulle – The Chocolate Cake in Paris

Chris Watts – New Zealand Green Shell Mussels

These and all other winning photos will be exhibited as expected from the second half of May at the “A Table – Exhibition” in Brussels. We will keep you informed on the exact dates.

Check the 15 winning pictures gallery on itqi-events.com

Innovation, creativity and determination are the key words of The Veuve Clicquot World’s Best Female Chef award i.e. a world chef award inspired by the original “Prix Clicquot” that celebrates success of women in business to honor the life and achievements of Madame Barbe Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin, known as the “Veuve (Widow) Clicquot” who was one of the first business women of France, leading  the Maison of Champagne in 1805 at the age of 27 years old.

Today, following the same line as the original one, this particular award is granted by the British magazine, Restaurant Magazine, to women chefs that stand out for success and creativity in the field of culinary arts.

This year is the turn of Elena Arzak, Spanish from the Basque Country. Fourth generation of the prestigious Arzak family, Elena started studying at home, then she traveled through Europe working in several high level restaurants. She’s now back to her family restaurants, first three Michelin stars restaurant of the Basque Country, opened since 1897 and led by Elena’s father, Juan Mari Arzak.

Links

http://www.theworlds50best.com/

http://www.arzak.info/index.html

The study concerned goes further than previous researches because before it was believed that the brain responded more generally with an overlap of different areas.

The research was conducted by Charles S. Zuker and his team of scientists at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the US and is published in the 2 September issue of Science.

The technique used by the lead author and postdoctoral associate in Zucker’s lab, Xiaoke Chen, is called two-photon calcium imaging. By injecting fluoroscent dye into mice’s brains Zucker’s team literally lit a real neural map of taste. That allowed the scientists to identify individual cells of the thalamus that respond to taste and to trace the neural connections into the primary taste cortex in a brain area called the insula.

Next step ? To find out how the taste combines with the other senses and internal states. Definitely a big challenge for a great team. Looking forward to the results !

Sources

www.medicalnewstoday.com, http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/233746.php [12/04/12]

chinese.erekalert.org, http://chinese.eurekalert.org/en/pub_releases/2011-09/aaft-amo082911.php [12/04/12]

www.zeusnews.it, http://www.zeusnews.it/index.php3?ar=stampa&cod=15516 [12/04/12]

For years China is leading many rankings in the world, overcoming U.S.A. in many domains. The latest one ? Food expenditure.

According to the last graphic elaborated by the Economist on the basis of the IGD (The Food and Grocery Experts) data, China is the first country in sales of alimentary genders. As you can easily see, the “others” are led by U.S.A. followed by Japan, India and Brazil. No European country appears in the top five, but this is just a matter of population.

In fact the ranking changes drastically if we look at per capita expenditure (number on the right, highlighted in blue). In this case the $ 722 per capita spent by the Chinese people do not come anywhere near the $ 4740 of the French population. Nor do the Indians’ $ 322 compared to the $ 3660 spent by the British population for instance.

Source : The Economist

Is Chocolate the “New Wine” ?

Some people say “chocolate is the new wine”. Now, they justify this with the complexities and levels of chocolate flavor. Such statement could be stunning to someone who has never been interested in chocolate before, but, believe me, the fact that chocolate is at least as complex as wine is not “new”. Not many people know that once chocolate was just liquid, even less would be aware that the pulp of cocoa was originally used to make a fermented (5% alcohol) beverage. That’s stunning ! At least it was for me when I found it out.

The discovery of the original use of chocolate was made, among others, by Dr. Patrick McGovern, Senior Research Scientist, Museum Applied Science Center for Archaeology (MASCA) at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, one of the five authors of “Chemical and archaeological evidence for the earliest cacao beverages”, published online in November 2007 on http://http://www.pnas.org.

So people are perfectly right when they talk about complexity of chocolate flavors. It couldn’t be different considering all the varieties and the very long story of the cocoa plant, used in South America since 1400 B.C.

Besides, at the end, they’re not that far from the truth when they say that “chocolate is the new wine”.

Long story short, chocolate and its history are a very complex and interesting topic. For this reason we thought to introduce you to a couple of links where to find good information about it. The following links will lead you, in this order, to the history of chocolate and to an introduction to the ways of tasting it.

Therefore, whether you drink or you bite it, cheers and long live chocolate !

Links

http://web.archive.org/web/20071202095415/http:/

/www.museum.upenn.edu/new/news/fullrelease.php?which=306

http://www.allchocolate.com/enjoying/intro_to_chocolate/

http://www.savorchocolate.com/chocolate_tasting/how_to_taste_chocolate.aspx