Stalking a chocolate mousse

I took a cruise to Alaska recently in search of moose and to my delight I encountered plenty of my favorite species: chocolate mousse.

That's because sailing with us on board Holland America's M.S. Ryndam was the internationally famed chocolatier Jacques Torres who, in the ship's culinary arts center (a fully equipped ocean-going kitchen with theater seating), demonstrated how to make mousse and other fabulous chocolate concoctions.

Though the prospect of being pampered for a week and the incredible beauty of Alaska's glaciers held great appeal, the real reason I had booked passage on this vessel was to meet Torres, one of my heroes, who goes by the moniker Mr. Chocolate. The nickname is well deserved.

As Paul Lukas, writing in the New York Sun, notes, Torres has become synonymous with upscale chocolates in New York City (a metropolis which is home to nearly two dozen luxury chocolate shops), eclipsing every other chocolatier there and rising to virtual rock-star status in the confectionary world. Willy Wonka has nothing on him. In fact, he delights in calling his staff "oompa-loompas."

Torres operates two chic chocolate emporiums in the city. The first, located on Water Street in Brooklyn's DUMBO section (down under the Manhattan bridge overpass), turned the area, formerly a district of abandoned warehouses, into a fashionable neighborhood.

The second, on Hudson Street near SoHo, incorporates the first New York factory to grind its own cocoa beans. Complete with a terra cotta statue of the Aztec cocoa god to greet visitors, it features a marble-topped chocolate bar shaped like a cacao pod from which chocophiles have a 360-degree view through 11-foot windows of the process by which chocolate goes from bean to bar. Some of the machinery there is carefully restored vintage equipment, like a refiner that was originally built to make lipstick. (Monsieur Torres assured us he had cleaned it thoroughly before putting it into production.)

Torres came by his "Passion for Chocolate" (the name of a Food Network special he hosted) honestly, through years of hard work and training, starting at an early age. When he was only 15 he began an apprenticeship at La Frangipane, a little pastry shop in his hometown of Bandol, France. He finished in two years, graduating at the head of his class. Then, on a bet with a friend, he asked chef Jacques Maxim for a job at the palatial Hotel Negresco in Nice and within an hour was at work there where he would remain for eight years before being lured to the United States by the Ritz Carlton hotel chain. In the meantime, he completed the degree of master pastry chef and became the youngest man to win the Meilleur Ouvrier de France medal, France's highest prize for a pastry chef.

Then, after a decade as executive pastry chef at Le Cirque, arguably New York's most famous restaurant, he decided to go into business for himself. He chose to focus on chocolate, he told me in his archetypal French accent as he autographed my well-worn copy of one his dessert cookbooks, because it required smaller startup costs than other food ventures. His strategy has paid off. He now sells more than $6 million worth of chocolates a year.

Given that background, it's hard to imagine anyone better qualified to stalk the perfect chocolate mousse, a dessert invented by another Frenchman who, like Torres, was both artistic and a talented cook--Toulouse Lautrec. He originally called it chocolate mayonnaise, but the term "mousse," meaning moss, ultimately prevailed, culinary linguist Mark Morton tells us, because the concoction's sponginess mimics the texture of that plant.

Easy chocolate mousse

Though Jacques Torres is known for his elaborately whimsical displays (like a chocolate Eiffel Tower) which are often complicated and can take hours to construct, this recipe, adapted from one he demonstrated during our recent Alaskan cruise, couldn't be simpler. It has only two ingredients and takes just minutes to put together.

Ingredients:

4 cups whipping cream

2 and 1/3 cups chopped bittersweet chocolate

Directions:

Melt chocolate. Whip cream to soft peaks. Gently fold one third of whipped cream into melted chocolate. Fold chocolate-cream mixture into remaining whipped cream being careful not to overmix lest cream deflate. Using a pastry bag fitted with a star tip, pipe the mousse into individual dishes and serve.

Listen to A Harte Appetite Fridays at 8:49 a.m. on KRCU, 90.9 on your FM dial. Write A Harte Appetite, c/o the Southeast Missourian, P.O. Box 699, Cape Girardeau, Mo., 63702-0699 or by e-mail to tharte@semissourian.com.