Swell Spotlight: Ruth Kennison
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You can even sample it if you want or just tell us what it is after you do that, please let us know what you'd like us to know first and foremost about the importance of chocolate in our culture, in our world today. And then from there, I open up this conversation to everybody listening, and I hope we get a really dynamic, a delicious conversation going with you about the wonderful world of chocolate. Welcome, Ruth Kennedy, Chocolate Evangelist to Swell. Thanks for being here
Ruth Kennison
@Ruthk · 2:03
It's the machine that makes chocolate. It's the machine I use for home chocolate making it's called a Malaysia. And the funny story about it is it has to run for up to two days so it could run 24 hours or 48 hours. And it has to run continuously. And when I have it on, my husband and son absolutely hate it. And they have to leave the room
Ruth Kennison
@Ruthk · 3:36
So I ended up going to study at the French Pastry School in Chicago and the Caliber Chocolate Academy, and I learned how to be what we call a chocolate tear. So I took other people's chocolate and I would temper it. And then I would make things out of it bombings and beautiful molded chocolates. And it was very fun. And I thought I had achieved a great deal
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
Ruth Kennison
@Ruthk · 4:21
But we need to talk about where it comes from, because chocolate is also an agricultural product. It is a fruit made from the cocoa pod or cacao pod. And that fruit grows ten to 20 degrees above and below the equator. And that's the only place it grows in the world. We call it the chocolate belt. So this beautiful fruit that the pods are beautifully colored, red, yellow, green, purple
Alicia Sedwick
@trixiedelight · 1:08
And I've had the pleasure of being in your home when you're in the middle of making chocolates, and they're in lovely bowls on every countertop throughout your house. So I realized, oh, my God, that's the root that makes the chocolate. When I've been to those Pardes. Anyway, I love hearing about it. And look forward to hearing more Yum. And I can't even think of my favorite
Ruth Kennison
@Ruthk · 4:22
We want the farmer to be paid more money, obviously, well above commodity price. We also want sustainability, and we want human rights issues, addresses, address, which means no child labor and no slave labor. That's what we're looking for, which is a hard ask in the chocolate world. But we're trying to change all of that. So when you're buying that industrial chocolate, you won't find any of the good stuff in chocolate
David Hochman
@heyhochman · 0:43
Hey, Ruth, thank you so much for that. Great talk on chocolate. You know, I'm going to ask you a different kind of question. Which is, what is it about chocolate itself that makes people so I don't know. It just makes people crazy. They want to just they will do anything for chocolate. We have all of Halloween for chocolate and all of Valentine's Day for chocolate. And love is built around chocolate
Ruth Kennison
@Ruthk · 3:10
So we do know that Montezuma, the Aztecs, would drink many goblets of cocoa or cacao, and it said he would drink them before he would visit his harem. So people talk about, is it a love drug or is this delicious treat just a stimulant that will keep you up
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 2:13
Why do I love it? And Secondly, is there a mole culture that's vegetarian, or is it only good on chicken or is mole other mole things that I can go after and find? So hopefully you can help me discover mole that's vegetarian or at least not on chicken. Okay, thanks
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