FRANCE 5 – TUESDAY DECEMBER 20 AT 9 PM – DOCUMENTARY
“Nine out of ten people like chocolate; the last lies, assures a popular saying. The statistics confirm: 93% of French people buy it, in all its forms, to eat 7 kilos a year, mainly at Easter and… at the end of the year. Excellent appetizer, this evening’s documentary reveals the omnipresence of chocolate in our daily lives, by multiplying, beyond reason, extracts from the archives. But can we be reasonable when we talk about chocolate? “I’m crazy… for Lanvin chocolate!” »assured in 1968, eyes bulging and mustache at attention, the artist Salvador Dali – the advertisement will boost Lanvin’s sales by 20%!
Dozens of other advertisements are mentioned, including those now recognized as racist, but also dozens of songs, including Hot Ka Ka O, by Annie Cordy (1985), dozens of works, from Paco Rabanne dresses to chocolate sex toys by Paul McCarthy. At the same time, historians and specialists insist on its antidepressant, aphrodisiac, anti-aging powers…
From Ecuador to Louis XIV
On the cinema side, we do not sulk our pleasure by seeing Omar Sy and François Cluzet in Untouchables (2011) – ” No arms, no chocolate ” – or to the evocation of the filming of Charlie and the chocolate factory, Roald Dahl’s novel (1964) brought to the screen by Mel Stuart (1971), then Tim Burton (2005, with Johnny Depp in the role of Willy Wonka, the “chocolate magician”), before Paul King’s prequel, announced for 2023.
In reality, the history of chocolate is just as invigorating. Traced with the help of maps and animated figures, since its appearance in Ecuador five thousand three hundred years ago. She goes through the Mayas, who call her bean “cocoa” and use it as currency – a rabbit is then worth 10 beans against 8 beans for a prostitute! The adventure continues in France, at the court of Louis XIII, then of Louis XIV.
From its culture to the development of the finished product, chocolate is still an invitation to travel. To explain everything to us, and make us salivate, three extraordinary chocolate artisans: in Belgium, Pierre Marcolini, best pastry chef in the world in 2020 and inventor of “outre-chocolate”; Stéphane Bonnat, met in Uganda where he is piloting an eco-responsible cocoa production project, belongs to a family that has been working with cocoa for three hundred years. In Voiron (Isère), he opens the doors of his factory which notably produces his “grand cru” tablets with a retro design. Finally, Patrick Roger, chocolatier-sculptor, is perhaps the most publicized of the three. Yet we discover him here: capable, he says, of eating “between 600 g and 1 kg” of chocolate per day; spend hours sculpting a giant orangutan or “take all the risk” to create “painted” half-sphere miniatures. Their scents? Apple-spinach, potato-vodka… He has just made 50,000 pieces. “And 50,000 coins is 50,000 times an orgasm!” » There is Willy Wonka in Patrick Roger.
The Mad Chocolate Adventure, by Stéphane Bergouhnioux (Fr., 2022, 90 min). France 5