Real chocolate and artificial intelligence
Apparently the ingredients for another blog post.
I grew up on champorado made with tablea from raw cacao, so whenever I find a coffee shop that purveys my childhood unsweetened nutty cacao flavor, I take the opportunity to try it out.
It’s another hot day as I write this and after finishing some errands and walking several hundred meters in the sun I decided to stop at a cafe in Cubao somewhere to rest, recharge, and apparently write. This is where I discovered iced tsokolate made with tablea inside a bear.
I miss writing my heart out, especially when I’ve been tinkering with AI to help write things for work, or even for these write ups. As an artist, I stay away from using AI to generate art, but I do use it to help with writing ideas. I also work for a number of clients in the environmental movement, and AI is becoming a beast I have yet to tackle – which AI do I recommend when it’s also become part of the backend of almost all of our apps? An unofficial policy I hold is that I don’t generate art or photos with AI – my clients must use authentic photographs of wildlife and natural areas, while at the same time acknowledging the livelihoods and incomes of photographers, and other artists (like me) affected by the changing industry. We also need to tackle the fact that AI uses up lots of water to cool down data centers. Yeah lots to unpack while we pack in more things to do.
What was I gonna write about again… oh yeah, childhood flavors.
Tablea is easy to come by in many places in the Philippines, Bohol included where my mom is from – known for its “Chocolate Hills”. The dry cool season is transitioning to a dry hot season aka summer, so said hills in Bohol must be brown and dry right about now – making them look “chocolate”. They go darker chocolate when fires start, and plant life is charred black or when the dark soil is exposed after the fires.
I never made the connection that tablea was chocolate as a kid. It was always so bitter, and the tablea itself – named after large chunks or “tablets” of ground, raw, roasted cacao beans – was just not edible, at least for a young kid with a sweet tooth. However once made into a concoction of leftover rice, tablea, and water melting together over a hot stove… the smell of it cooking was the best. My mom would pour me a hot plate or bowl, where I’d add 2-3 spoons of white sugar, and watch how the brown color got darker and richer – making the flavor just right for me.
It wasn’t until later in life that I learned there were regional differences on how raw cacao is used and consumed. My Tagalog friends were having it with condensed milk, malagkit or sticky rice, and whoa, salted anchovies called “dilis.” I called it leveled-up champorado – a few levels up from my mom’s simpler childhood concoction. Sweet and salty is one of my favorite flavor palettes, but having grown up on the leftover rice and water variety, I’ve grown to still appreciate the basics.
The chocolate we get from the store is obviously different, but it uses the same exact source – cacao. I won’t get into the history I learned some years ago when I was drawing my favorite childhood “porridge”, but I gotta give props (thanks) to ancient Mexicans – the Aztecs and Mayans – who discovered and cultivated chocolate long before the Spanish arrived and brought it to the archipalego we’ve long since called the Philippines.
It’s amazing how flavors can take you back to your childhood, and if you have the imagination and curiousity, back into ancient lands and peoples who shared that same love for these flavors.
Try generating THAT AI!!
No seriously, if AI could generate policies and robots to implement universal health care, world peace, and the ability for humans to pursue work as a passion rather than to survive with data centers cooled down in some far out facility in outer space powered by solar panels and space ice – then I welcome it. For now, building rockets to kill each other rather than jettison technology to greater heights and competing for depleting resources on Earth apparently works for humanity’s leaders.
Ok time to put all the BS behind me for just a few more minutes as I enjoy this ice cold chocolate drink made with tablea, looking at me like it’s Winnie the Pooh.
