[Sca-cooks] cacao nibs

[S CLEMENGER]

I've eaten chocolate bars with cacao nibs in them, and they seemed to add a 
certain depth of flavor and, yes, a certain minor grittiness, much like 
eating coffee beans.  Nuts have a smoother feel to me, personally.  I've 
never eaten nibs solo, though....Would be fun to try, just for the 
experience!
--Maire


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius1 at verizon.net>
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Sent: Monday, August 25, 2008 7:31 AM
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] cacao nibs


>
> The nibs I've got on hand in the freezer don't seem very gritty to me.
> Perhaps there's a crunch from the outer husk or shell portions, but it
> never seemed like a big issue for me; but then I've been known to eat
> coffee beans, too, so perhaps my bar for informed tolerance of
> otherwise-perceived-as-unpleasant things is set at a different height.
> To me, the mouth feel is quite similar to that of chopped macadamia or
> Brazil nuts.
>
> Similarly, they also don't seem very bitter to me; from what I can
> tell, they've got enough fat in them that the mouth gets somewhat
> coated, and the worst of the bitterness doesn't get through. I'd
> describe the sensation as more "unexpectedly not sweet" than bitter,
> and as most of our sense of taste is in fact an offshoot of our sense
> of smell, it's not surprising that something so aromatic should have a
> flavor of something besides alkaloids.
>