Luxury chocolatier, Amelia Rope, was inspired by the unique flavours of Mauritian cuisine at this year’s Culinary Festival Bernard Loiseau at Constance Belle Mare Plage.
Amelia Rope’s chocolate creations
In an article for The Telegraph she describes how she visited the island and the famous culinary festival looking for inspiration.
‘As a chocolatier I am always on the lookout for exciting new flavours and culinary techniques. To get inspired I headed to Mauritius and enveloped myself in the unique Constance Culinary Festival for a week of serious food tasting and the chance to explore some ingredients that make the Mauritians truly rock.’
Rope took the opportunity of trying some of the home-grown spices which form an important part of the island’s cuisine and even tried her hand at using the traditional roche-cari and baba (the Mauritian equivalent of a pestle and mortar) to create ‘wet and dry pastes that are punchy yet balanced to perfection’.
She describes visiting the local market, ‘Bulging with herbs, spices, vegetables and fruits (some beyond recognition), along with the most glorious sight of market holders wearing striking saris, it was a fantastic place to taste, smell and gently handle.’
But for Rope the lasting impression she took from Mauritius was the way the different cultures blended together both on the island and in the influences on the cuisine.
‘The conviviality of all the diverse cultures living together in harmony is a vital ingredient to the island’s distinctive foods. Their natural understanding of balancing so many flavours blew me away. I have brought much home and put it immediately into my cooking.’
Read Amelia Rope’s full article in The Telegraph.
Read More
- Check out our insider’s guide to Mauritian Cuisine
- Find out how Mauritian Cuisine captured our hearts
- Discover more about the key spices of Indian Ocean cuisine, cinnamon, chilli and ginger
Photo: The Telegraph
No Comments