London Chocolate Week

This year London Chocolate Week promises to be as enticing as ever... Who can resist all those events where it's free to taste so many different types of chocolate?! 

Of course, chocolate's always been a great way to tell someone that you're sorry after an argument or to let someone know how special they are. So why is chocolate often seen as something we shouldn't really eat? 

In this edition of London Life, we find out all that and more! Before you listen to the programme, have a look at these comprehension questions; you'll hear the answers during the programme. You can also download and follow it with a transcript. 

1: What is a 'chocoholic'? 
2: What is the main difference between very dark chocolate and white chocolate? 
3: Who discovered chocolate? 

Vocabulary 

to be very fond of something or someone 
to love something or someone in a gentle way and to think of them as special and very dear to you 

the creeps 
a very unpleasant and sometimes frightening feeling 

Example 
The old house gives me the creeps; they say there are ghosts in it! 

hand-made 
something that's made without the use of machines so that each piece is different 

source 
a place where something, here cocoa beans, come from 

organic 
something that has been grown or raised on soil where chemicals to control pests, for example, haven't been used for a certain number of years 

too indulgent 
something that you enjoy so much that you eat or take much more of it than is good for you, you over indulge 

husk 
the dry outer covering or shell of some fruits and seed 

You can listen to this programme here (click on download at the bottom)

Yvonne: Hello, I'm Yvonne Archer and this is London Life from

bbclearningenglish.com!Now don't get me wrong, chocolate's great but I seem to be one of the few people who can live without it. Here are some of the reactions I got about the news of London Chocolate Week. It seems that chocolate may be magical – so try to catch the special chocolate term that one person uses to describe herself and her family!

INSERT

Oh I think that's a great idea to have a chocolate week – ooh that's very nice! I mean I like chocolate, I don't absolutely adore it but I do, I have to say I'm very fond of it.

I do like chocolate; I could say I love chocolate.

Oh I love chocolate, especially very, very dark chocolate – very expensive chocolate – I love

it. I come from a family of chocoholics.

Yvonne: Cath's from a family of 'chocoholics' – a whole family of people who are addicted to chocolate! So they must have it – and they really can’t do without it. Cath enjoys very, very dark chocolate – so chocolate that's made with lots of cocoa and that reminded me how much I enjoy the odd bit of white chocolate… chocolate with just a little bit of cocoa. So what's Nuala's reaction to that?

Nuala

Ooh no, oooh - I hate white chocolate. Ooh, it just gives me the creeps. No, I have to lick my teeth just to get the taste away.

Yvonne: No white chocolate for Nuala's birthday then! She hates it so much that it gives her 'the creeps' – it gives her a very unpleasant feeling when it's in her mouth. Nuala says she has to ‘lick her teeth’ after eating white chocolate – rub her tongue over her teeth to take the taste away as quickly as possible. Oh well, more for me then!

Mark du Market, a chocolatier – a chocolate maker – explains what he thinks are the best chocolates. Listen out for how they're made and for a very special ingredient that can't be grown or bought…

INSERT - Mark du Market

I would say it's the hand-made chocolate using the best beans and ask your chocolatiers, where do you source your chocolates from? You don't just want to look at the percentage; you want to see that the beans are of good quality and that there's passion behind it.

Yvonne: Mark thinks that the best chocolates are made by hand rather than by a machine.

He says we should ask our chocolatiers where the cocoa beans come from – as he put, where they 'source' the beans – as well as how much is used in the chocolate. So, is there a high percentage of cocoa in the chocolate? But did you also notice that Mark says there should be 'passion' behind making chocolates?

So the best chocolates are made by people who love making them.

The ancient Aztecs from South America discovered chocolate and thought of the cocoa tree as a source of wealth and strength. They used the beans like money but also crushed them and mixed them with spices to make a type of bitter- tasting hot chocolate drink. So it was very different to the sweet hot chocolate that we enjoy today. But that's history and London Chocolate Week is all about what's new in the world of chocolate. So have our friends made any recent discoveries? Try to catch the different types of chocolate they mention:

INSERT

My favourites I think are orange dark chocolate and I also really like butterscotch chocolate.

Pepper and chocolate – wonderful combination – delicious. Cadmium tastes really nice, lavender tastes very good, rosemary, thyme, oregano…

I think organic chocolate is something that's quite new and that seems to be very delicious.

Yvonne: Well, as delicious as organic, fruity or even herb flavoured chocolates are, people still feel as though they shouldn't eat it? Try to catch the three main reasons why…

INSERT:

Chocolate is not very good to me. Not only does it make me put on weight and is bad for my teeth but it also, and believe it or not and I'm a man in my 50s - but I still get spots when I eat chocolate.

Well I suppose because it's fattening and I suppose people do say it's quite good for you. They say it's good for the heart and good for the blood but I suppose I do still have in the back of my mind that it's a bit too indulgent and I shouldn't really be doing it.

Yvonne: Do you also find chocolate 'too indulgent' – it's so enjoyable that you sometimes you eat more of it than is good for you? And did you catch the three main reasons why Kaz and Cath try not to eat too much chocolate? We heard how it makes them 'put on weight' - 'it's fattening'. We also heard how it's bad for our teeth – because chocolate is made with lots of sugar. And poor Kaz says that chocolate still gives him spots – something that mainly young people get!

But somehow, I doubt that Kaz or Cath will ever stop eating their beloved Chocolate.

So here's some good news: there are scientific reports which say that eating chocolate is good for the heart and that the husk of the beans – that’s the shell that covers each bean - might be good for cleaning our teeth!