Raising the Bar
Pam Williams, Jim Eber
Wilmor Publishing Corporation
October 2012
$19.95/hardcover
$9.95/ebook
978-0-9691921-2-1 – Print Version
978-0-9691921-3-8 – eBook Version
Pam Williams has been involved in the chocolate industry since 1981 when she opened her first chocolate endeavor, the chocolate shop: au Chocolat. In 2003, she founded Ecole Chocolat Professional School of Chocolate Arts which delivers high quality educational programs to students all over the world. Pam received the 2011 Fine Chocolate Industry Association’s Recognition of Excellence in Service to the Industry.
Jim Eber is a veteran writer and collaborator specializing in food and business marketing. He has worked with many companies and publishing houses. Beyond this book, Jim is currently working with the Fine Chocolate Industry Association on the launch of the Heirloom Cacao Preservation Initiative. Much to his wife’s past chagrin—but current delight—this is his first book on chocolate.
“Just give me all your chocolate and no one gets hurt!” Billions of us worldwide understand what it means to scream those words. We feel lost—even unhinged—without chocolate’s pleasures. And if chocolate is the music that makes our days brighter, fine chocolate is the symphony—the richest, most complex form in the chocolate universe. The most important movement in that symphony’s centuries-old existence is now beginning. And that future is . . . what? A world of gray monochromatic flavor, or one rich with a rainbow of flavors that capture the myriad pleasures and diversity of the cocoa bean?
In the spirit of The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, RAISING THE BAR: THE FUTURE OF FINE CHOCOLATE tells the story of what that next movement in the fine flavor chocolate symphony might hold. Told in four lively parts covering everything from before the bean to after the bar—genetics, farming, manufacturing, and bonbons—the book features interviews with dozens of international stakeholders across the fine flavor industry to consider the promises and pitfalls ahead. It looks through what is happening today to understand where things are going, while unwrapping the possibilities for the millions and millions of us who believe that life without the very best chocolate is no life at all.