The Sicilian Chocolate That Uses A Centuries-Old Technique

When planning a dream trip to Italy, your mind (and stomach) may wander to creamy scoops of gelato, thick slices of Sicilian-style pizza, or almond cookies. But among the country's rich culinary traditions, there's a lesser-known treat you can find only in Modica, a baroque town in the south of Sicily. Modica Chocolate (Cioccolato di Modica), known for its pure cocoa taste, minimal ingredients, and granulated texture, involves an age-old cold-pressing technique. Unlike most chocolate-making processes used today, which involve heating cocoa, sugar, and other ingredients to smooth and emulsify the mixture, Modica Chocolate involves working cocoa and sugar together at relatively low temperatures, which prevents the sugar from dissolving. You can spot a bar of Modica Chocolate by its coarse look, brittle bite, and the feeling of sugar crystals on your tongue.

It's said that the Spaniards brought cocoa beans from the Americas to Italy in the 16th century, during Spain's multi-century occupation of the country. In time, Sicilians began cold-pressing the fruit and mixing it with sugar and spices to make sweetened cocoa beverages. Eventually, this process expanded to develop chunks and bars of coarse Modica Chocolate, retaining the long-used cold-working method of avoiding exposing the ingredients to too much heat. Practiced for centuries, the cold-worked chocolate technique remains key to the regional confection — Modica Chocolate even carries a Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) stamp, which it received back in 2018, further preserving the treat's quintessential ingredient purity, grainy texture, long-standing craft, and cold-working technique.  

Key to Modica Chocolate's signature purity and crunch is the use of low temperatures to make it. First, cocoa beans are ground into a paste and then mixed at around 104 degrees Fahrenheit with sugar and other additions like cinnamon, chiles, or flowers. Because of the cool mixing temps, the sugar granules in the chocolate stay in their granule form, which imparts a signature grainy bite and rustic look. The chocolate's ingredients also contribute to its purity. Modica Chocolate doesn't even contain cocoa butter. It's simply the cocoa mass, sugar, and spices — vegetable fats, emulsifying ingredients, and milk are never added to the mix.

Cold extraction methods used for Modica Chocolate, as opposed to the heating and agitation most other chocolates undergo during the conching step, provide a rougher palette and are said to preserve some key antioxidants, flavor, and aromatic compounds that can be lost in high temperatures. Today, some artisan chocolate makers use a low tempering process for the chocolate that imparts stability in formed bars, extends shelf-life, and prevents blooming and discoloration. Still, the chocolate is never allowed to reach a temperature over 122 degrees Fahrenheit. 

When tasting Modica Chocolate like a chocolate connoisseur, you can treasure the uniquely Sicilian sensory experience for yourself. A slow bite will reveal the pure flavor elements of the cocoa, such as roasted notes, earthiness, or bitterness. Buon appetito, indeed.