Charlie Writes:

For the past few weeks at the flea market there’s been a man selling vintage chocolate molds. At first, I didn’t think much about them, but then when my New York friend Liz went into paroxysms of ecstasy as she plowed through the bins of metal Easter bunnies, Halloween witches, Father Christmases and the like I couldn’t help but join in.

As we bartered and bargained, I thought about Lisa and of her long history with chocolate. Not just that she loves the stuff and is quite adept at making it, but the story of Lisa and chocolate goes back far and ties in with Thanksgiving. It’s quite a story, and puts me in mind of our recent essays on home schooling. But Lisa can tell this story best. So now we’ll head back in time to 1934 and Frankfurt Germany.

"The Nazis were already in power for quite some time," Lisa begins, while knitting a multi-colored fun-fur boa. "It became more and more uncomfortable for Jewish children to go to school. We’d have to start the day by greeting the teacher with heil Hitler and extending our right hands in the Nazi salute. This was followed by hateful songs such as, When the Jewish Blood will Run from our Knives. The girls who belonged to the Nazi Youth the BDM (Bund Deutscher Maedchen) would sell medals and they made me buy one with some Nazi slogan on it, but they told me, ‘we just want your money, you can’t wear it.’

"One day, after a French lesson the teacher, a kindly man named Herr Hupe, called myself and two or three other Jewish girls to his desk. He seemed embarrassed as he informed us not to come back to school, ‘for our own safety.’ I was fifteen years old and this was the end of my formal education.

"It was, however, the start of my mother’s school of life. You see my mother, Elsa Hoffman, had few illusions about the Nazis and she wanted to get me and my younger brother Hans-Erich out. But it was getting harder for Jews to leave the country. There were few avenues left, and my father, who was a bit of dreamer, was not as convinced as she that things were going to get as bad as they did. My parents had lost their business, which had been taken away by the Nazis; my father had been part owner of a department store. Their only option to survive was to rent a large apartment and start a pension—a type of boarding house that included meals.

"It was in this pension that my mother undertook my education, and that of several of our boarders and other young Jewish women, with an eye toward acquiring skills that could help us immigrate to England as domestics. So into our house came an assortment of instructors, most of them Jews, who like ourselves had found themselves displaced. I learned how to carry soup and arrange silverware from an experienced head waiter. He’d make me carry three soup plates—our best Rosenthal china--filled with water around and around our dining room table without spilling a drop. Up to this day, I still serve from the left and remove from the right.

"My mother had also hired a chef, and we were all excited because he was to give a course in the art of chocolate making. Tragically, a week before the classes were to begin he was taken away by the Nazis and never heard from again. At the same time, I began an apprenticeship with a famous chocolate maker in Frankfurt. I’d go in the morning dressed in a white uniform and learned how to make chocolates from scratch. He told me that the most important thing is to use an excellent quality chocolate such as Lindt or Tobler. The Belgians also have good quality and this would come in large slabs called couverture, which means ‘to cover’ in French.

"He showed me how the temperature is everything in making chocolates, because one degree too warm and it becomes gray and streaky. You might notice in summer that chocolate can appear that way, it’s not that it went bad, just that the heat got to it. This is why I keep mine in the refrigerator. In those days rather than use a thermometer you’d hold the liquid chocolate to your lips and recognize the correct temperature, which was just slightly cooler than body heat. Likewise, you could drop a spoonful on wax paper, and if it dried almost instantaneously with a glossy finish you knew it was ready."

"Meanwhile, my mother was in a bit of a fix as she’d already collected money for the chocolate-making classes from the prospective students and didn’t want to disappoint them. So with a week of chocolate making under my belt, I stepped in and taught the class what I’d just learned. It took a certain amount of Chutzpah, and I never let on that I was a novice. I don’t think they caught on. At the end of the course I was even asked to give a second." Lisa looks up from her knitting, "you know, I just pictured both of my parents at the entrance to the kitchen as I was giving my lesson. They were watching me and they looked so proud."

"As I’ve mentioned before, I am a chocoholic. Each week I’d learn how to make something new, and then show it to the class. We made wonderful chocolates with all sorts of different fillings, marzipan, ginger, nougat, various liqueurs. We’d form them into different shapes and using special dipping forks coat the centers, knock of the excess and place the candy on parchment so that the chocolate would not puddle or develop "feet". Then, while the chocolate was still wet we’d pull the fork across the surface creating designs or, adding a garnish that could identify the treat inside, like a candied violet, mocha bean or nut.

"It wasn’t long after my chocolate classes that my mother was finally able to obtain a visa whereby I could leave the country and go to England as a domestic. The process we went through to get that documentation was long and risky. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the Quakers for lying on some of my documentation and stating that I had experience as a domestic; they were the only ones brave enough to do this. It’s also one of the near-miss realities of my life. I left Germany on August 18^th 1939. Two weeks later war was declared between Germany and England. While I’d managed to get away from the Nazis I now had become an enemy alien. I was alone in a foreign country, frightened and insecure. But I carried inside of me all of the lessons my mother had worked so hard to get for me. I could make chocolate, cook for large families and carry soup without spilling but more importantly what she’d given me was a belief in myself. It’s stood me well through the years this gift from my mother Elsa Hoffman. I’d like to share it with you, our readers. It’s the knowledge that even though you might not feel entirely prepared, you must seize the moment, look like you know what you’re doing and make the best of it."

-The End-

These truffles make a wonderful present and are the ultimate in chocolate richness. When making, always use the finest ingredients.

Ingredients:

½ cup heavy cream (fresh, not ultra pasteurized)

2 ounces butter (unsalted)

3 Tablespoons sugar (superfine, melts faster).

One pound chocolate (bitter or semi sweet)

½ cup cognac (you can also use rum or a liqueur)

In double boiler heat sugar and butter till melted and dissolved.

Add chocolate—break it into pieces so that it melts faster. Stir continuously with a wire whisk.

Add cream and continue to stir with whisk.

When completely melted add ½ cup of good quality cognac. Stir until thoroughly integrated.

Set aside and cool in refrigerator overnight. Another technique is to keep whisking the mixture with the bowl in an ice bath. This creates a lighter truffle and allows you to complete them sooner.

With two teaspoons make chocolate balls on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper.

Roll truffles in cocoa, finely chopped nuts, or powdered sugar.

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