Chocolate! And theology!

[tree_and_leaf]

Chocolaty reformed goodness!


"It's not easy to represent theological ideas by using the taste buds," acknowledges Poyet, a master chocolatier from Maison Poyet in Vevey, ... "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."

I must admit that my usual reaction to a mention of Calvin is not to think of chocolate, but I really do want to try these. Actually, what I really want is a box of theological pralines, where you can chose your own theologian or hero(ine) of the faith... that has potential to be one of the most awesome things ever.

A Luther praline would have to involve a dark ganache with red wine flavouring it, I think.

Or one could have a library of chocolates inspired by favourite books. How would you represent yours?

Comments

[azdak.livejournal.com]

That's... that's... ::flails::

Okay, I know here in Austria we have Mozartkugeln, but Mozart and frivolous indulgence sort of go together. Whereas Calvin and chocs go together like...like... ::flails::

[tree_and_leaf]

Fishes and bicycles? That was my response, too (though growing up a Scots presbyterian has given me a visceral dislike of Calvinism which may not be entirely fair to the man). But I'm sure Calvin would hate the entire concept. It's like the idolatrous worship of the saints, but with added gluttony!

Though I actually quite like the idea of trying to do theology in chocolate form - or abstract ideas generally.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

It's like the idolatrous worship of the saints, but with added gluttony!


I wish you wouldn't DO that! Now I shall be giggling at random intervals all day.

[tree_and_leaf]

My work here is done. *smirks*

[estelyn-strider.livejournal.com]

Now Luther and chocolate, that I can imagine! Since my favourite chocolates are laced with various alcoholic flavours, I don't see a teetotaling theologian matching my taste - go figure... :rolleyes:

At any rate: dark chocolate, a bit of alcohol to cut the sweetness - who aside from Luther would fit my preferences?

[tree_and_leaf]

em_h's suggestion, below, for Gregory of Nyssa, sounded pretty delicious!

I've actually got a bar of Luther chocolate lying about at home, but it's just plain dark chocolate, not a soft-centre.

For some reason, I'm thinking dark chocolate with orange oil for Meister Eckhart.

[em-h.livejournal.com]

oh, this is too good. I had to go to Firefox so I could respond.

Gregory of Nyssa: a very dark, almost bitter chocolate with a honey liqueur filling, expressing the radical rift between the created and the uncreated, the mutability and flow of all existence, and the sweetness of his commentary on the Song of Songs.

Julian of Norwich: hazelnut praline!

The anonymous author of the Cloud of Unknowing: you don't get any chocolate. You just rest in the hope of it.

I'll see if I can think of more when I've had my coffee.

[tree_and_leaf]

Pseudo-Dionysius. You have a chocolate. Then you take it away.....

Julian is perfect. Possibly coated in milk chocolate - the coating expressing how God encompasses the world, and milk chocolate, of course, with the milk symbolizing Christ our mother.

Also: Gregory of Nyssa sounds delicious

[em-h.livejournal.com]

Possibly coated in milk chocolate - the coating expressing how God encompasses the world, and milk chocolate, of course, with the milk symbolizing Christ our mother.

Excellent, yes.

For Origen I'm thinking about a chocolate I once had with Pop Rocks in it, which seems to capture his unpredictability and general tendency to fire ideas off in all directions at once ...

I think Irenaeus would probably be a milk chocolate of some kind, but I haven't come up with a filling or flavouring for him yet.

[tree_and_leaf]

Ooh, the Origen works.

[shoebox2.livejournal.com]

Dickens nut clusters seem strangely appropriate...Jane Austen I think would be bittersweet truffle. The Brontes would be some sort of liqueur. Ooh, then The Phantom Tollbooth in marshmallow/caramel, and maybe Watership Down in plain milk chocolate caramel...

...erm, for the sake of my diet maybe I better stop now.

[tree_and_leaf]

Brontes would be some sort of liqueur

Branwell would be gin, presumably!

Coleridge would probably have to involve poppyseeds somewhere....

[shoebox2.livejournal.com]

[nods] And Wordsworth would be milk chocolate and should involve lavender, or maybe just a small edible pansy atop.

Orwell...definitely dark, with I'm thinking maybe a peppery filling? You know, that instant of hope, then cruel reality.

[tree_and_leaf]

Wordsworth - the first few are really good, but by the time you're half way through the box, you're bored?

I like your thinking re: Orwell.

[schreibergasse.livejournal.com]

I think Calvin ought to be some sort of dark chocolate thing, instead. Bitter, sophisticated, perfectly done, but not to everyone's taste.

Aquinas would be another wine (or liquor) spiked one, I think in milk chocolate, and rather elaborate. Walking the fine line between transcendently wonderful and overdone. (Maybe layers of milk, white, AND dark chocolate, with liqueur?)

I was going to say that Benedict would have you not eat any chocolate, because you're supposed to be all self-denialy and humility-ish. But he specifically prescribed dessert!

I think Bach might be coffee cream.

I should think of some more.

[tree_and_leaf]

Augustine - dark chocolate with chilli (similar to your idea on Calvin, really)?

Bach has to involve coffee. With fairly dark chocolate, I think - something rigourous and grown-up.

I would like to do Dante in layers, too. Something dark and a bit smoky - possibly chilli - on the outside; then something minty for Purgatory, and honey on the inside; except in practice that would probably be exceedingly nasty all at once!

[em-h.livejournal.com]

I sent this around to some of the Trinity divs, who are now hard at work ...

"I'm trying to come up with one for Luther.....something like white chocolate on the outside, and dark, bitter on the inside for even though we are indeed forgiven the inner " adamic man" never ever ever ever ever ever changes.

And come to think of it, St. Paul's might be the opposite but with a layer of milk chocolate in between....dark chocolate: the realm of the " fleshliness & sin" from which we have been freed; milk chocolate with nuts etc for a 'rocky-road' middle layer (Romans 7: the struggles of the New Life in the Spirit as yet humans); and then a white chocolate center for the sanctifying work of God/indwelling of the spirit (romans 8). Perhaps with the nuts in the middle layer it could pass as a 'Pauline Praline'."

[tree_and_leaf]

I am glad to have spread the procrastinatory yet theologically tinged choclatey love....

[azdak.livejournal.com]

a white chocolate center for the sanctifying work of God

Heresy! The work of God should never be equated with white chocolate, which is sweet and false and has no truth in it (no, nor cocoa solids neither). Verily, white chocolate is the work of the devil!

I'll be assembling my pile of brushwood over here...

[tree_and_leaf]

Cocoa solids: like the Word of God, in a way?

I knew there was a reason I hated white chocolate. It's my intrinsic sense of orthodoxy and love of truth. *removes tongue from cheek*

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Chocolate without solids is like the Host without Transubstantiation!

Any tongues found in cheeks will be removed!

[em-h.livejournal.com]

Being all Anglican today, I'm going to attempt a kind of via media between you and my friend who wrote those. While agreeing that white chocolate is an inappropriate expression of the work of God, I would still see a place for it. Perhaps white chocolate is human good works ...

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Being all Anglican today, I'm going to attempt a kind of via media

White chocolate is to real chocolate as the Anglican Church is to the Catholic Church!

(I'm assembling my second pile of brushwood over here. BWAHAHA!)

[tree_and_leaf]

No, white chocolate is unitarianism!

[azdak.livejournal.com]

I find it hard to disagree with this.

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

Maybe that's why I like white chocolate? Or, at least the truffles in Thornton's boxes, especially the ones with the dark streaks. Sums me up, probably.

[tree_and_leaf]

See, it all makes sense! *g*

I'm not sure what the black streaks mean, though ;)

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

I threw those in because they add a level of further doubt which is entirely appropriate...

[tree_and_leaf]

Anglicans, of course, are fruit and nut....

(Am running late for a meeting. Try not to start any pyres before I get back, OK? ;) )

[azdak.livejournal.com]

BWAHAHAHAHA!

[schreibergasse.livejournal.com]

< sporfl >

[em-h.livejournal.com]

It really is excellent that we *already* have schisms going on ...

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Wheresoever there are two or more Theologians gathered together in my name, there also are schisms...

[tree_and_leaf]

That's very amatuerish!. If you were brought up presbyterian like me, you'd be able to start a schism in an empty room. It's like a superpower, only not actually useful.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

That sounds very quantum somehow. Maybe that's how the Big Bang started.

[tree_and_leaf]

So therefore Milky Bars = pelagianism?

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Heresy! It's all heresy!! There is only One True Chocolate!

[tree_and_leaf]

AUGUSTINE SAYS WHITE CHOCOLATE IS ANATHEMA!

[em-h.livejournal.com]

Right down to the faint sense that something is somehow missing ...

[em-h.livejournal.com]

Thomas Cranmer: borrows everyone else's chocolates and smushes them together into a yummy chocolate pastiche!

[tree_and_leaf]

*sporfles*

It's such a delicious pastiche.

Keble: buttery, sunshiney caramel, with a slight hint of incense....

[estelyn-strider.livejournal.com]

OK, since books and not just theologians are being bandied about now, I suggest pralines to go with my favourite light-hearted author Georgette Heyer: champagne truffles!

I'm at a loss to think of something appropriate for Tolkien - as he was all for simple English cooking, a plain chocolate bar might be the best choice.

C. S. Lewis - Kinderschokolade! (milk chocolate with a milk cream filling - nothing for me, though I know there are grownups who like it)

Mystery fillings in chocolate pralines for Lindsey Davis - a bit of unexpected crunch within the familiarity of a family setting.

Clusters of all kinds of nuts, marshmallows, and anything else that occurs to you for Jasper Fforde, with layers upon layers of various chocolates holding them together.

Hmm, this seems to say as much about my eclectic bookshelf as about my chocoholic tendencies...

[tree_and_leaf]

I can't help feeling that's a bit unfair to Lewis, but that's probably just because I don't like Kinderschoklade.... But Heyer is definitely champagne truffles, and I like the Jasper fforde idea.

I'm thinking a dark chocolate cherry liquer (with real cherry) for Dorothy L Sayers. (Like a Mon Cheri, only with better chocolate)

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

Catholicism is a dark, smooth chocolate with some kind of red wine centre?

[tree_and_leaf]

Catholicism definitely has to be smooth, I think, where as Protestant chocolates tend to have unexpected chunky bits....

[helflaed.livejournal.com]

But what about Orthodox chocolates? At least one sort should involve rose-water, in memory of the blessing given to my Grandpa by the Arch Priest of Jerusalem when he was there as an army chaplain, welcomed as a stranger in a strange land.

[tree_and_leaf]

I know too little of Orthodoxy to suggest anything, but I like the rose-water idea - and that sounds like a good story.

[helflaed.livejournal.com]

I asked the other half- he suggested that Hildegarde v Bingen is a refreshing mint chocolate, plain not over-sophisticated and down to earth, yet beautiful and pure.

[tree_and_leaf]

Ooh, yes. And also medicinal/ herbal. Just right!