Childhood picture books, stories and TV shows that depicted food and dining made a real impression on me. Illustrations of steaming bowls of pasta or a piece of toast smothered in purple jam gave me my first taste of foods I'd yet to try, and are sometimes still the archetypes I hold food up to today. Instead of simply reminisce, I'm going to bring those dishes to life the way I imagined they'd be.
On a dark, stormy night, on her journey to the kitchen from her cold attic room, Meg had time to get down on herself about everything from her mousy appearance, to her IQ level to her recent scrap with bullies at school. This girl needed a drink! She knew it, and decided on hot cocoa. That this was a romantic choice, for a young girl, chilled, a little scared and a lot bummed out, was only part of the appeal to me as I read those opening pages in A Wrinkle in Time. There was also the accepted adult-ness of the whole situation, because who should be heating up milk in anticipation of both Meg and her mother showing up in the kitchen in need of some, but the "baby brother" of the family, Charles Wallace, wise and weirdly intuitive beyond any human's years. He goes on to offer to make Mrs. Murray a liverwurst and cream cheese sandwich and Meg a tomato sandwich but they had me at hot cocoa.
Don't get me wrong, I loved every page of the popular sci-fi novel and I still do. (I just downloaded the audio book read by the author, Madeline L'Engle herself. There were parts that still scared me when I listened before bed. "There is such a thing as a Tesseract!") But it was the first "scene" hooked me, no question. The idea that you could wake up in the night and have a luxurious snack--that you could dirty a pan at that hour to boil milk for cocoa (how much?? who had cocoa powder at the ready? I'd have to work for months to first explain to my parents that it was the opposite of Nestlé Quick, that no, microwaved chocolate milk would not cut it and then try to source it because there was no way their half-hearted wild goose chase would be successful. And God help me if it was expensive...), and that your family would join you instead of chasing you back to bed yelling about the hour and rising early for school/jobs in the morning--that was fantasy I ate up as much as any other part of the book.
I don't blame my parents for not knowing what hot cocoa really was, how to make it, or how it differed from hot chocolate which was a little more widely known (read: marketed). I had a chalky mug or two of cocoa that I tried to enjoy (read: use to transport me to the Murry's kitchen and their entire messed up, brilliant, multi-time+space-dimensioned adventures). But we can do better today.
First, on hot cocoa, CHOW notes the same, that while "...hot cocoa is sublime. At its worst, it’s chalky, watery, and too sweet. This version, provided by François Payard, of François Payard Bakery in New York, is definitely in the former category: so creamy, rich, and chocolaty that it’s a suitable stand-in for dessert.
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup whole milk
Granulated sugar, to taste
Note: For a lighter version, use 1/3 cup fresh cream and 2/3 cup skim milk."
And An Enlightened Palate adds: "Hot cocoa lacks the creaminess and luscious mouthfeel of a cup of hot chocolate, but it is more concentrated and has a more chocolaty taste...there is less vegetable fat (natural cocoa butter) in the cocoa than there is in shaved chocolate...fat coats the palate and minimizes flavor."And offers a different method (note the technique):
2 teaspoons dutched cocoa powder ( we prefer dutched process cocoa because we feel that these cocoa powders have a deeper flavor, darker color and a smoother texture that blends flawlessly in hot beverages.)2 teaspoons sugar
2 tablespoons cream, not heated
6 ounces boiling water
Optional: whipped cream or mini marshmallows for garnish
Place the cocoa powder and sugar into a mug and mix well. Add the cream and stir into a smooth paste. Add the boiling water and stir until the mixture is smooth and well blended. Ladle the hot cocoa into a mug and garnish if desired.
And, though this wasn't a contest, there is a winning technique in my mind. An Enlightened Pallette's method resulted in the best cup of cocoa I've ever had--the blend and pour method made for a deliciously creamy cocoa and it came together in seconds with water from a kettle and no pot to stand over. It was perfection with just one tweak that I would add to either recipe...
...a tiny sprinkle of salt.
Charles Wallace probably saw that coming.
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I thought of Katherine, whose illustrations you've seen here in the past, as soon as I wrote this post. I hoped she would agree to bring Meg and the Murry kitchen to life and I hope you love her illustrations in this piece as much as I do. For more of her delicious illustrations, check out Drawn and Devoured.
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