Cocoa and a Cento Poem

The dual theme of my A to Z Challenge this year is the world of Commodities and Poetry Forms so the juxtaposition of these two themes may throw up some strange poems – could be a Heroic Ode to Heating Oil or will it merit a Haiku or a Haibun – whichever, I will be endeavouring to bring you interesting facts about commodities that may change the way you think about the stuff we variously depend on…

By commodity I mean certain items that are of both sufficient value/volume to be traded in special markets and are generally volatile enough to attract traders in “Futures” which are a way of hedging bets in the trading world of stocks, shares and commodities.

The A to Z Challenge runs throughout April and will consist of 26 posts – there are only a couple of letters for which I couldn’t find commodities but plenty of poetry forms to carry the day!

Worldwide Trade in Cocoa 2022 $46.4 Billion

Cocoa perhaps above all others, exemplifies the aspect of commodities whereby they are the raw materials for other things that we consume and in the case of cocoa, from which we get chocolate – literally consume! And yet, how many of us know where our chocolate comes from, how it’s raw ingredient is grown or by whom and how it turns into our favourite sweet treat?

If you want the full facts I suggest you go to the Fair Trade Organisation commodity briefing because they are tireless campaigners for better prices for cocoa producers since of the 4 million tonnes of Cocoa produced each year around the equatorial globe, worth 20.3 billion dollars, 90% of it is grown by 5-6 million small farmers whereby close to 50 million people depend on cocoa production for a living. From them, the product is mainly concentrated into the hands of just 9 companies. But I am going to take a more personal look at the world of Cocoa.

The world of Cocoa production is in crisis at present

• Processing plants cannot afford to buy beans
• Consumers around the world will have to pay more for chocolate
• The market could be heading for a fourth year of deficit

You can read more about it here, but here is the essence – and you might want to stock your cupboards with the sweet stuff…

In normal times, the market is heavily regulated – traders and processors purchase beans from local dealers up to a year in advance at pre-agreed prices. Local regulators then set lower farmgate prices that farmers can charge for beans.
However, in times of shortage like this year, the system breaks down – local dealers often pay farmers a premium to the farmgate price to secure beans.
The dealers then sell the beans on the spot market at higher prices instead of delivering them at pre-agreed prices.
As global traders rush to purchase those beans at any price to meet their obligations with the chocolate firms, local processors are often left short of beans.
Ivorian and Ghanian authorities normally try to protect local plants by issuing them with cheap loans or by limiting volumes of beans that global traders can purchase.
This year, however, plants are not getting the cocoa they pre-ordered and cannot afford to buy at higher spot prices.
Already, chocolate-makers have raised prices. U.S. retail stores charged 11.6% more for chocolate products last year compared with 2022, data from market research firm Circana shows.
The International Cocoa Organisation (ICCO) expects global cocoa production will fall by 10.9% to 4.45 million metric tons this season.

Reuters

Talk about ignorance – I can’t remember how old I was before I finally pinned down the relationship between cocoa and chocolate – and it was drinking cocoa and drinking chocolate that forced me to look it up – drinking cocoa is just powdered cocoa and you can make it into a drink or use it as an ingredient in cakes, savoury and other dishes. Drinking chocolate might variously contain. sugar and milk powder to make a sweet chocolate drink.

As a child, in a Western, first-world country, my sisters and I had plenty of chocolate – especially at Easter with Easter eggs. We had white chocolate courtesy of The Milky Bar Kid and we gradually became aware not only of Milk and Dark Chocolate – gradually acquiring a preference for the latter with its more bitter taste – or not. We also started to notice the difference between cheap chocolate that melts in your hand, and the crisper snap of better quality chocolate such as Lindt cast chocolate Easter Bunnies. But it is only in recent years that I have come to understand the whys and wherefores of these different aspects of chocolate.

In 1968, en route back home to England from Australia by ship, we called into Trinidad where a taxi driver took us to a tropical beach with picture postcard palm trees leaning down across the sands and he also stopped at a roadside stall to buy a Cocoa pod. Breaking open the pointy-ended yellow oval pod, he revealed the cocoa beans inside coated in a white flesh which he broke out and gave us to suck. The white flesh was pleasant and slightly like lychee if I recall correctly but bite into the beans and it was a bitter disappointment! Could this be where chocolate came from? The answer is yes but only after considerable processing.

Jump ahead some 50 years when I worked and still work for a factory that makes a lot of sweet chocolatey cakes and puddings, and I was lucky enough to spend a day at the UK plant of Barry Callebaut AG – the top processer in the world of cocoa yet like all the big processors, with the exception of Nestlé who also make finished chocolate goods, most people in Britain and probably any of the countries where they have plants, will say Barry who? In the UK, the best-known chocolate sweet manufacturer is Cadbury (Bourneville) and in America, the names Hershey, Nestlé and Mars dominate the chocolate market, but I discovered on my day at Barry Callebaut’s that it is they who provide the chocolate to Cadbury – BY THE TANKERFULL!!!!!

Huge 1-ton blocks of cocoa have already been processed by taking the farmer-dried beans, crushing them and melting them slightly into giant blocks. Callebaut then refine the cocoa further into chocolate solids (the principal ingredient of dark chocolate) and cocoa-butter (the principal ingredient of white chocolate) and by mixing in milk solids and sugar, they produce milk chocolate. Most of Callebaut’s output is in the form of tiny pellets of chocolate or the aforementioned tankers of liquid chocolate. They also sell a small amount of “cocoa nibs” – a health supplement and occasional food ingredient and they sell pink chocolate – the product of years of selective breeding.

I also learned why cheap chocolate melts in your hands and expensive doesn’t – it’s all down to the tempering – something I knew of in relation to metals but not chocolate. It costs money to repeatedly heat and cool chocolate until it is tempered hence the greater cost of tempered chocolate, but if you want to cast fine detail and not have it melt in your hand and get a snap when you break it – then temper it you must…

I left Barry Callebaut with a secret yen to become a Chocolatier but I fear that sampling the goods would not be good for my diabetes!

One more personal connection with chocolate – as a student I lived in Birmingham – not far from Bournville the model village set up for its workers by its Quaker founders. Bournville sells chocolate products under the name Cadbury…

And so to the poem which is a kind of “found” poem where I searched for lots of poems referencing cocoa and took lines from them to make a new poem known as a Cento.

Cocoa Poems

To attract you to the front of the store
Chocolate candies abound
In a cocoa river
palate tales abound
What a rich flavour
with hints of cocoa

Make hot cocoa
Black confection triple thick
triple chocolate
I was a Christmas drink almost to sweet to sup
A chocolate star lay at my helm, scrumptiously tasty

Or when it’s cold enjoy warm cocoa
Our fireside chat
to hot cocoa
With one thought in mind…
We enjoy winter, the more
we enjoy cocoa!

In this mug, memories steep
hot chocolate whispers, soft and deep
Carnation instant hot cocoa… my Mom’s treat with a kick of nutrition.
Each morning for one mug, I visit with Mom.
Like a little fur in my Mexican cocoa said my old grandma…
Saw a furry creature sitting in her cocoa cup!

He ordered a cocoa, not expecting anything extra
the smiley face at the top almost changed his mood
Tentative brush of a cheek in a cocoa crush
Knocking back the sepia potion,
Cocoa coursing through their veins.
I miss my cocoa butter kisses,
hope you smile when you listen

© Andrew Wilson, 2024

This Cento poem incorporates lines from poems by Ilene Bauer, M.L. Kiser, Anne-Lise Andresen, Caren Krutsinger, Heidi Sands, Albert, C. J. Krieger, Billy Ros III, Sara Etgen-Baker, Gwendolyn.Queenofself, Lucia Heffernan, John Betjeman, Stanley J. Sharpless, Keke Davis.