[Kevin]
Hey, Michelle, how are you doing?

[Michelle]
I am awesome, Kevin, because we're going to talk about my second favorite thing next to tea. Me?

[Kevin]
Oh, that's so nice.

[Michelle]
Oh, yeah, not you, not my dog, not my kids, not my husband.

[Kevin]
How come the dog comes before me? That's not cool. Wow.

[Michelle]
No offense to anybody.

[Kevin]
I mean, the husband, yes, but the dog? Wow.

[Michelle]
Yeah. Yeah. So are you going to tell them or am I?

[Kevin]
You go ahead. You do the honors.

[Michelle]
We're going to talk about chocolate, chocolate, chocolat, yes, with a very special guest. Very special.

[Maria]
I love.

[Kevin]
Hello. Special guest.

[Maria]
Oh, hello. Thank you so much. I'm so happy to hear that I'm a special guest.

Yeah. We're going to talk about the food of the god.

[Kevin]
Yes, exactly. Exactly. So our guest today is Maria Mancini-Sanobo.

She is a chocolate maker based in the Bruce Peninsula here in Ontario, where incidentally, I used to live actually quite a few years ago.

[Maria]
You did?

[Kevin]
Yeah.

[Maria]
Why do I not know this?

[Kevin]
Well, just south of the Bruce Peninsula.

[Maria]
I'm in south of the Bruce Peninsula, near Wyatt.

[Kevin]
And we're recording this almost on Groundhog Day. So you know, Wyatt and Willie, it's almost, you know, his time to shine.

[Maria]
Is he still alive?

[Kevin]
Well, I think there's just an endless stream of like Wyatt and Willie. They clone them or something.

[Maria]
Today is their very second.

[Kevin]
I couldn't tell like one groundhog from another. No offense to groundhogs, but they all look the same to me. I mean, come on.

Anyways, Maria owns and operates Mayana, where she makes drinking chocolate with heirloom cacao that she sources from farmers who grow it organically in the region of Soconusco, Chiapas in Mexico, where criollo cacao has been cultivated for millennia by the Maya. Maria was born and raised in the central region of Mexico, in the land of the Aztec civilization. She continues the long tradition of using quality cacao grown in Mexico to create and offer high quality chocolate, as she just said, the food of the gods.

[Maria]
Yes.

[Kevin]
So welcome, Maria. Thank you for joining us. I'm looking forward to this because I know nothing about cacao except it's delicious.

So Michelle, I think I'll pass it off to you because I'm just a newbie here. So I'm just I'm just listening. I'm just the audience member at this point.

[Michelle]
Maria, it's such an honor to have you here as our first special guest on the podcast. And I just have to tell a little bit of a backstory, Kev. This very persistent person kept contacting me when I had my store and about about demoing some chocolate product and it was drinking chocolate.

I was like, what? You can drink chocolate? What's this about?

Anyway, we eventually met up and fell in love with this woman immediately. She's not only just so lovely, but I don't think I've ever met anyone more knowledgeable on chocolate and and just I can't wait for her to tell you her story and everything. But yeah, it was pretty much, you know, as much as two colleagues can do is pretty much love at first sight.

And Maria, we were just so aligned. Yeah. So I'm excited for you to, first of all, introduce our listeners about how you came into this business and about your culture, because there's a lot that people don't understand about the origins of these these traditions around chocolate and where it comes from.

[Kevin]
That's me. That's me.

[Maria]
Yes. Happy to share about it. Thank you so much, Kevin and Michelle for having me.

Yes. So I'm always so passionate about cacao and chocolate and what I'm doing. Happy to share about it.

And as you as I can, I have a lot to share as well. There's a lot that I don't know, especially about cacao and I'm sure that's what Michelle is going to share today is going to be interesting. Are you excited?

Yes. I'm going to try. You also.

Yes. And yes, so I'm Mexican. I grew up in Mexico.

And and, you know, cacao, it's in chocolate. It's always been a part of our culture and traditions in Mexico. In Mexico, chocolate is to drink.

We we have chocolate for breakfast. We have chocolate any time, as much as people can have coffee as well, but chocolate is a special food that we have for a special celebration in Mexico that it's, for example, the Day of the Dead. It's an offering to our people who is no longer with us because we all as Mexicans love chocolate.

And then chocolate, and so a cup of chocolate, it's what we have more than chocolate bars, for example. That's something that there is in Mexico, especially nowadays, there's more artisan chocolate makers, Mexico making great chocolate, chocolate bars. But yeah, mainly we are we are used to drink chocolate.

[Kevin]
But Maria, correct me if I'm wrong, but there's all, I mean, along with drinking, there's also a history of cooking with chocolate, because isn't mole sauce?

[Maria]
Yes, that's right.

[Kevin]
Got some of that chocolate, because I've tried it once or twice and I tried making it once or twice to limited success, but it adds a richness and a bit of bitterness, but like an earthy bitterness, if that makes sense.

[Maria]
Yeah, so it's yeah, the mole, it's also one of our traditional dishes in Mexico. And it's always for celebrations, like weddings, like baptism, because of all the ceremonies.

[Michelle]
This sounds so delicious. And you said for breakfast, that is my idea of heaven.

[Kevin]
Sounds kind of rich to me.

[Michelle]
Yeah, I'll tell you guys later, but like there is a whole chocolate thing with me. And it's my family knows about it. I'm a little bit obsessed, but it has to be really good chocolate.

But drinking chocolate, isn't that because, Maria, that like originally there wasn't really like we didn't have the ability originally to make it stable, like to harden because of the cacao butter, right?

[Maria]
No, not necessarily. So chocolate actually originated in Mexico. The Mayan culture, even before the Mayan, the Olmecs basically domesticated the tree in this region of Mexico in Soconusco, Chiapas.

Well, we know now that the cacao tree originated in the Amazon, but it's nowadays Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia. Yeah, we but chocolate itself, the drink, the Mayan comparison, chocolate, the world.

[Kevin]
Thank you, Mayans.

[Maria]
Yes. So, yeah, so they somehow found out that that if they were grinding the cacao beans, they would get in this space, which is called metate. And then they were when you grind it with heat, because obviously down in southern Mexico, it's very hot.

The weather is hot. And that's what we need. We need heat for the cocoa bean to release the fat when we are grinding.

OK, so with the stones and with heat, we create this space that it's like the fats released. So this is a space that they were mixing with water. They also had honey.

Honey was sacred food for them as well. And probably some were mixed with honey, but there were other ingredients like chili peppers, also flowers and other ingredients that they started to add to the drink. But it was the base, cacao and water.

And then, yes, that's how if the quality, because of the fat, the phospholipids in the chocolate help to, it's like an agent to create the form of the drink. So when they were going to have a good quality, it was an elixir for the elite, first of all. And so to prepare this good, high quality chocolate drink, there were some skilled women who were in charge of that.

And they were putting the drink from one vessel high up to another vessel and doing it that way to raise a form of the drink. And so it's known that the leaders of the sessions of the Mayan leaders in the cities where they were, the higher age of the empire, they were drinking not just one cup or two, they were drinking pitchers of this beverage a day.

[Kevin]
Yeah, right.

[Michelle]
OK, and this and this pouring from elevation, this is just like chaiwalas making chai in India. There are so many things that are like very parallel between tea and chocolate. It's so amazing.

And so have you seen them do this, like where they're pouring? Yes, I've seen. I've seen.

Yes, I. And I don't know how they do it, because they'll pour it from over their head and it will just land in a perfect stream in the other cup. And then there's lots of.

Yes, that's right. I mean, don't try this at home. Yes.

[Kevin]
Yeah, exactly. So Maria, sorry to interrupt, but I had a question, though, because I want to clarify when you're saying, you know, they drink pitchers of chocolate and all that. So we shouldn't be thinking of like today's chocolate.

Is that correct? Because like we like generally like in North America, like we add a ton of sugar to chocolate. So can you clarify?

Like, because I know that cacao is slightly sweet. It's got a bit of natural sweetness, but generally not as much as what we think of as a chocolate bar or hot chocolate or something.

[Maria]
Yeah, so well, so cacao, there's many less qualities of cacao and cacao that we call fine flavored cacao. It actually it's it can be like an infinite flavor profile in that we can find in cacao, depending on the variety, the terroir, there is the conditions, environmental conditions where cacao is grown. And also the post-harvest practices that the farmers do for cacao, that is going to develop a flavor profile of those cacao beans.

And so there we can find like fruit nuts, nuts, nuts, herbal nuts, spicy nuts in cacao. And and so that's actually the work of a maker. It's to process, try to bring out all the natural flavor of cacao.

This is what it's called, especially chocolate and cacao. OK, so we will say that there are certain there's a bitter, bitter taste in cacao, but fine flavored cacao coming from especially the varieties, the tannins in the fruit of cacao fruit are less, let's say, compared to what we call commodity cacao or cacao. And and then so the the tannins are less, so the bitterness is less, but it's less bitter and more aromatic cacao.

Oh, yes. And then, yeah, I mean, in ancient civilizations like Mayan and the Aztecs, when they were drinking cacao, they were drinking food as it is, natural and with water. It's a sustaining food.

It was probably the only caloric food that they had that time because they were growing maize. They were growing other spices in the area, but cacao was a caloric food and they could eat it all day without eating anything else. And they were going to have they were going to be they were going to have nutrition and they were going to have energy and also sustain and to go and work all day.

So that's why it was a very precious food, a valuable food for them in the first place.

[Michelle]
That's that's amazing. This is again, this is so much like tea. So you've mentioned a few things you've mentioned about, you know, how you may have three main sort of species of a cacao plant, but there are so many varietals and those varietals develop over like years and years and years of hybridization and adapting to terroir.

And terroir, we know that as a Somali, we refer to that as the taste of a place. So I don't know if you caught that. One of the things Maria said was like, you know, they can have fruity notes in one section, they can have spicy notes in another section.

This is exactly like tea, because it's the plant is influenced by everything that's growing around it. And then there's also what the what the what the chocolate maker, in this case, instead of the tea master, what they're how they are processing and other other influences that they are bringing into their process to influence the flavors and that that that slightly bitterness is attributable to the polyphenolic compounds or the antioxidant compounds that are so good for us and and stimulate liver enzymes and other things. So like it's just magical. And I just I just loved diving into this, Maria, and realizing, oh, my God, every time I'm turning a page, I'm like, this is just like tea.

This is just like tea. That's why there's, you know, tea and chocolate pairings are such a such a popular thing. But I had no idea that everything from this plant itself through husbandry and cultivation is is so parallel.

Yes, it's it's incredible. And even a lot of the same nutrient compounds that that make tea healthful, a lot of them are similar. That's in cacao.

You know, as long as as long as humans don't do something to cheapen it.

[Maria]
Yes, definitely. So like when food is natural. We can definitely get all the benefit of food.

And so there are three major groups of classification a cow. OK, it's not necessarily the genetics of the cow. It's called Criollo, Forastero and Trinitario.

That's I mean, in the general people, we will do probably as just like you mentioned, I've heard about this. Of cacao, we probably have heard that Criollo is quality, the other ones are not. So, yes, so there's these three groups of classification.

And but the biodiversity genetics, there's actually in 2008, there was a research where they say, no, it's actually 10, 10 of or from genetics.

[Michelle]
Oh, wow. Yeah, I heard three when I was in my husband and I were in Costa Rica and we went to some cacao farm and they gave us a little education about it. Can you just say the three again, the three classifications?

[Maria]
Yes, so Criollo, Forastero and Drinitario. So Criollo means basically, so when the colonizers from Europe, so the Spaniards arrived in Mexico, south of Mexico, what is today's Tacoma, Chiapas, all these regions in Chiapas, they call, they name the cacao, it's when they first encounter cacao and they name it Criollo. But Criollo basically means from here, or native.

Okay. Native. And then cacao that was coming from South America to this region, they were calling it Forastero, which is foreign or far away or from far away.

[Kevin]
Okay.

[Maria]
And then they also were colonizers and there was an island in Tobago, they hybridized the two cacao, Criollo and Forastero. Right. And they created what they call Drinitario, that's it actually.

[Michelle]
So that's more modern then? That's a more modern version?

[Maria]
Yeah, I'm not sure when that happened. Probably it's not like, it's more new. Yeah, it's like 100 years ago, probably.

Yes, something like that. Not sure about that for me. But yes, it's pretty new.

And so then these are the mayor groups. And so the cacao that I source and that I make my chocolate with, it comes from Toconusco, Chiapas, Mexico. And these are selected beans from actually four native priorities of the region, which is Hola Melonados Toconusco, Lagarto Rojo, Lagarto Verde, and Cotija Amor.

[Michelle]
Just sounds so musical.

[Maria]
Yes. So these are priorities that are native to this region. The beans are fine flavor beans, it's called Cacao Frito de Aroma in Spanish.

And the farmers have gotten this knowledge to work with beans and deliver high quality, fine flavor beans. And so yes, when I got to see, I went to this land and I got to learn all these, that's what I wanted to offer. I wanted to offer the food in its natural essence, because of the value of the plant, of the fruit, of the food.

And that's why all this inspiration from Cacao in the beginning, it was consumed. That's what I wanted to do myself. I wanted to offer this food.

And we drink it because just like coffee and tea, there's some people who want to enjoy having a conversation over a cup of drink, or just some of the Cacao chemical components. It's a very complex food. It has over 700 components.

And some of this is like what is called serotonin, or glucose. It definitely makes you feel good. It's a drink that makes you feel good.

It keeps you alert. It also gives you energy that is just not like, I keep you awake, but it's an energy that it will let you be productive and also at the same time, feel calm and alert. So that's why I found it myself that it was important to share Cacao without adulterating.

Adulterating with sugars and with unnecessary ingredients, um, that it's only, um, just for the taste, right? For the, for having something that it's, uh, moment, momentum, uh, pleasure, but not something that is gonna give us actually what the plant naturally can give us, which is the energy, the nutrition, um, and also the taste. Amen, sister.

[Kevin]
I mean, it sounds like it's already a, you know, a fairly complete complex food. So then why add more?

[Michelle]
It is, you know, I feel, I feel like this is again, another situation where humans take something that was already perfect and then they mess with it in order to make it a cheaper product or shelf stability or to like adulterate it in some way. And then they, they try to pass it off as the healthy, the healthy product that we know it to be, but they, but they cheapen it. And these things are all very unnecessary.

I feel like really good dark chocolate, like just makes me a better person.

[Maria]
Yes. Well, that's awesome.

[Michelle]
Now, Maria, can you talk to us about, cause you know, I'm all about the sustainability aspects of food too. So, um, and, and the chocolate industry is known to be one of those industries, like the same as the coffee industry and the tea industry are guilty of this scenarios as well. Um, tell us about where you get your chocolate from and, and about that, about the sustainability aspects.

[Maria]
Right. So yeah, it's all related. So what, what we, you just said it's, and what we're talking about, it's, um, you know, when food becomes industrialized, um, and, um, the people who did the companies, right.

Operate on the way that, um, they don't think about the food, but they think about like profitable, um, businesses. So, so they, they really don't know, um, about the cow. They really don't know where it comes from.

They just know how to process any power in chocolate. They know how to operate machines. And so, um, that's the difference between industrial chocolate and, uh, chocolate.

Um, so we, we were, um, I mean, all the industrialization of chocolate is also pretty new. It's like maybe 200 years of production of chocolate. They, you know, this company is industrial chocolate.

They need, um, a cow, they need, uh, the supply, um, of cacao, but because they have, they follow recipes, um, and they follow process this, they don't, then they want to get a final result and they want to get consistency, the flavor of it. And these, uh, all the products they, they, they make. So, so they put all the, all these, um, um, uh, additives, uh, sugars, uh, flavoring, um, and all these to, to get, I mean, they follow the recipe and they don't care.

Well, it's not the quality of cacao in the first place. It's not important. It doesn't matter what it is, where it comes from, what's the origin, um, who grew it, how the, how it was processed, um, all along the supply chain.

There's no traceability and there's no transparency because that's not what matters, um, for, for, for industrial, um, chocolate company. Right. Um, and then in the early 2000s, um, uh, well in the early 2000s, like 2010, um, there there's chocolate makers, um, that is called craft chocolate makers that, uh, started to, um, emerge in the U S mainly and Europe, um, where now it was, uh, also equipment to make chocolate.

There was, it was more accessible or started to be more accessible. Still, we don't have, um, accessibility to equipment, but we now are able to make chocolate with, um, um, basic equipment that we can get, um, the couple of companies or three companies, um, in the U S and then Europe where, um, we have, um, um, access to equipment. And so I, I started to make chocolate and, um, and my vision since the beginning was making chocolate with a cow because, um, not just because I I'm inspired about the history of chocolate where all it started in the Mexican.

And because I am, um, I mean, drinking chocolate is part of my culture, but also, um, I wanted to make chocolate that, um, that it, that it's for Mexico because it's excellent quality. And so I went, I went to Chiapas, I met the producers and I know that this producer that I work with is all, um, is, um, is, is the father in four sons and the family, um, it's working with cacao. They, they produce also coffee.

They also grow other crops. Um, and, um, but, um, yeah, um, I know, I knew that I wanted to work with them and, uh, uh, that's the cacao that I am trading with. I sourced directly from them.

[Michelle]
So that's fascinating, Maria. And correct me if I'm wrong, when you are making, like you're getting this chocolate and you're making your beautiful chocolate elixirs. I don't know, know if we told the listeners that she's got chocolate as well as these, this, these drinking chocolates and she calls them chocolate elixirs.

You're making your formulations by hand, are you not?

[Maria]
Um, well, yeah, I mean, the formulations are thought on the way that, um, so cacao elixirs is, uh, recipes. All my, my chocolate is sugar-free to start with. Um, and my cacao elixirs contain at least 80% cacao.

And the other ingredient is other superfoods. I have a recipe with medicinal mushrooms and the other recipes is, uh, with a mocha with coffee from the same region, uh, that I took cacao from.

[Michelle]
That's for you, Kevin.

[Maria]
Yes, it's, it's great. It's an elixir because I also added, um, which is a superfood is native to Peru. It's a fruit that is high, uh, vitamins, minerals, but, uh, it's a great source of vitamin C, for example.

So the mocha has, uh, lukuma and cinnamon from Mexico and Himalayan salt.

[Michelle]
They're so good.

[Maria]
And the, and the, and the spicy is spicy, which is, uh, obviously, um, my inspiration. I, you know, it's the recipe, the Aztec recipe, which is my ancestors, um, from the central region of Mexico. I, I, I served the chili, uh, powder the chili from there, from around there.

And also the cinnamon as well. So those are my, my recipes that I call cacao elixirs, uh, from 94% cacao, 87, 82 and 80% cacao. And, um, when I, when I, um, when I'm formulating these recipes, um, I, I think of like, okay, what's the dose recommended, for example, of the seasonal mushrooms powder.

Then, um, from that, I, I, uh, I formulated the way that, uh, we, we consume the recommended doses, uh, especially for, for medicinal mushrooms, let's say Maca and Lukuma as well. In one or two cups of chocolate. So if you enjoy, uh, uh, this cacao elixir, um, in one or two cups, you're getting your recommended daily dose of super or maybe and, um, and then there's also, I have, um, 100% dark chocolate, which is just pure cacao.

Um, I have it in powder because, um, my intention powder for the elixir as well is just a very practical way and easy way to melt it. And it doesn't matter what tool you're using to actually make a nice, uh, frothy chocolate drink. Um, and, uh, and that's why it's, it's, I pulverize it by hand.

So it's more, it's not powder like cocoa powder that we know, like very fine. It's more like almost granulated, uh, percent.

[Michelle]
Okay. It is. The consistency is always, every time I worked with it is very perfect.

It's a very perfect consistency. Um, and, uh, yeah. And, and Kevin, you just pop it in a, in a frother with milk and, and, and like a minute later, you're drinking this beautifully consistent, flavorful, rich, dark chocolate drink.

[Kevin]
It sounds absolutely amazing. The, the a hundred percent cacao is as you, that the, the spicy one and the one with, with, uh, with coffee, I'm all over those.

[Michelle]
It's awesome. And listeners, we are going to tell you how to get this later, but let us continue to nerd out though, shall we? So I want to, I want to, I want to hear more of what you say, but I just want to pause for a second on the soup, what you superfoods that you're adding.

I'm always a little bit nebulous about the term superfood, but in this case, um, the herbs that you're talking about are all adaptogenic and quality. And the reason that's significant from, um, from a nutrition perspective is adaptogens are those herbs that, um, allow our nervous system to adapt to whatever our conditions that it needs. So if you're a person that manifests stress in a way that you can't calm down, you have difficulty sleeping, like you're just wired all the time and you can't relax, then the adaptogens help to balance your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system to bring you back into like a more restful, more even, um, um, homeostasis.

If the way that you manifest stress though, is the other direction where you're just lethargic and you're, you're tired all the time and you have difficulty concentrating and, and engaging in life, um, for other reasons, then again, it brings the sympathetic and the parasympathetic system back into balance. And that's why they're called adaptogens. They adapt.

And when I was in school, I remember being so confused by this class of herbs called adaptogens, because you could go to literally go to the nutrition store and pull out, you know, some sort of a supplement that says it's for energy and then pull out a supplement that says it's for like helping to induce rest and to calm anxiety. And they got the same herbs.

[Kevin]
It's the same thing.

[Michelle]
That is confusing. An adaptogen is an adaptogen is an adaptogen, right? So, um, but there, there are slight, I'm oversimplifying a bit.

There are slight differences between different mushrooms and different herbs, but generally when we talk about, you know, what's going to happen in your body after you drink this, you've got all of this polyphenolic goodness and, and all of the, all of the good things, um, about, you know, methylxanthins, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll explain all of this later, but you've got all of this going into your body as well as these beautiful, um, adaptogenic herbs as well, but they're not, they're not contributing a taste, right, Maria? Like the taste is all in your formulation of the flavor. They're, they're just there.

[Maria]
Right. Well, yes. Some sort of like, um, for example, yes.

And, and, um, I mean, my, also my formulations, uh, my recipes are formulated in the way that you enjoy the chocolate first, right. Enjoy a cup of chocolate. And then, yes, you can taste, uh, the, the coffee.

Yes, you can taste, uh, the cinnamon and the spicy one and the kick of the, of the chili in your throat. Um, uh, and you can, for the mushroom, for example, the mushrooms, um, they have this particular taste. Um, you are going to taste it, but, um, I mean, if you, if you compare, if you, let's say drink the four of them, you are going to taste the difference of the, of the ingredients in the recipe.

Uh, but yeah, you, uh, in the first place, you're going to enjoy, uh, the flavor of the chocolate.

[Kevin]
Yeah. It's, it, it sounds like it's more of a, a, a slight modification and it just is, is, you know, the overall palette.

[Maria]
Yeah. We want it also to taste good.

[Kevin]
Hey everyone. So as you can probably tell the three of us hit it off really well, and we just kept on talking and talking and talking and talking and talking some more. So rather than having one incredibly long episode, we decided to cut this up into two separate episodes.

So coming up in your feed in two weeks, Michelle and Maria and me a little bit, but mostly the two of them are going to be talking about the nutrition of cacao. And as a special treat for Nutrition for Noobs listeners, Maria has generously offered a discount code for you all. So you can try Maria's amazing products by going to mayana.ca that's M-A-Y-A-N-A dot C-A and enter the code N-4-N-1-0 that's N4N10 at checkout. So in the meantime, I'm all alone here in the editing booth. So I thought I'd just do one dad joke solo just because no one is here to stop me. So why did the donut visit the dentist?

He needed a chocolate filling. Okay, so that's it for me. And in two weeks, we'll be back with our very special guest Maria to talk a little bit more about our new favorite topic, cacao.

Until then, eat your greens. And as Michelle would say, be real. This has been Nutrition for Noobs.

We hope you're a bit more enlightened about how your fantastic and complicated body works with the food you put into it. If you have a question or a topic you'd like Michelle to discuss, drop us a line at N4noobs@gmail.com. That's the number four, N-O-O-B-S at gmail.com.

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We'll see you next time with another interesting topic. The views and opinions expressed on Nutrition for Noobs are those of the hosts. It is not intended to be a substitute for medical, nutritional, or health advice.