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| vol. 51, no. 15 |
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Page Two |
Masthead |
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Chocolate Art at Joseph Schmidt By Lynda Nguyen
With Valentine’s Day only weeks away, you still have time to find a gift for that special someone. Luckily, you are in the right place, as the Bay Area is home to Ghirardelli, See’s and Scharffen Berger chocolates. However, nowhere else will you find chocolate art like that of a small chocolate store called Joseph Schmidt’s in the Mission district of San Francisco. Now owned by Hershey’s, Joseph Schmidt started as a humble enterprise of an Israeli immigrant in 1983. Since its inception, its creator has been credited with chocolate masterpieces such as several hundred black and white chocolate pandas that former Mayor Dianne Feinstein took with her on a trip to China and a twenty-five pound chocolate cable car presented to the Queen of England. Although you will not find art of this magnitude at the store, there is plenty of other intriguing chocolate for you to discover. Joseph Schmidt chocolates are characteristic for the half-dome egg-shaped truffles and artful mosaic squares. Each chocolate is a piece of art, boasting swirls, drawings and colorful decorations on the outside. Each holiday season, you can find unique crafted confections like a chocolate nutcracker, replete with a red, black and white suit for Christmas, and heart-shaped truffles for Valentine’s Day. In the summer, they sell packs of orange chocolate sea shells and sea stars. Year round you will find the unique Joseph Schmidt chocolate bowl, starting around $35. The inside of the bowl is a swirl of myriad colors, making this an aesthetic gift that is just too beautiful to eat. In fact, this can be said of many other finds at Joseph Schmidt. On a recent visit, I found a chocolate tool kit for around $11. Made of milk and white chocolate, it included artfully crafted screws, a saw, wrench and extension bar. Some of the chocolate art is infused with so much artificial coloring that there is not a hint of brown anywhere, making it not resemble typical chocolate at all. It seems like the focus at Joseph Schmidt is more on the pliability of cocoa butter than the flavor of the cacao bean. The first advantage of visiting the store is that you can find unique gifts such as the chocolate tool kit, which is not available online. Secondly, you will find discounts also not available online. When I was there, the chocolates from the previous season were marked down a whopping 60-70%. Thus if you want to sample their truffles, typically $15 for a box of six, you can find them for only $5-6 in last season’s packaging. The packaging itself is artful. The chocolates I found were packaged in hand-painted papier mache boxes, each with distinctive “Joseph Schmidt of San Francisco” tags, making them perfect gifts for tourists and out-of-town guests. The only caveat is that these hand-crafted chocolates have expiration dates that are shorter than factory made chocolates. The forthcoming season’s chocolates are usually previewed in a corner of the store. Furthermore, as is typical in a candy store, there is a large glass display case with a plethora of chocolates individually for sale. There are also racks featuring chocolate bars ($2) and chocolate for hot cocoa. The customer service at the store is exceptional. There was a woman at the counter offering samples with alacrity. A man dressed in a white coat, making many confuse him for Joseph Schmidt, gingerly wrapped each purchase in ample tissue paper and sealed it with a Joseph Schmidt sticker. When I was there, each purchase came with a free gift of a set of implements for making hot cocoa. As for the chocolates themselves, I think the truffles look better than they taste. I found the truffles too large and awkward for one person to eat, and the filling is too sticky and messy for the truffle to be cut. The filling, whether caramel or cream infused with rum or sprinkled with coconut flakes, is very sweet. The Reese’s peanut butter cup-shaped chocolates are thinner and less messy than the truffles. Although I have not tried the Mosaics, they seem more delectable than the truffles. They are tiered layers of nougat, biscotti, caramel, and nuts of small, hand-decorated chocolate squares. However, only four of these are $15.50. Joseph Schmidt is easily accessible by BART and also via the red shuttle from Mission Bay to 16th St. It is in several blocks’ walking distance from this BART station. Whether you want to find a Valentine’s Day gift or just to view a multi-color chocolate swirl bowl, you should visit Joseph Schmidt. Lynda Nguyen is a second-year pharmacy student. |
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