CHOCOLATE lovers recently indulged in a one-off specialist workshop with master chef and expert chocolatier Grant Mather, who treated them to an exciting afternoon of cookery and craft as part of the Chagford Film Festival.

Crowds of cocoa fanatics gathered at The Globe Inn last Thursday (September 29) to experience Grant’s practical demonstration of chocolate making, which was followed by a screening of hit film Chocolat (starring Johnny Depp).

Grant, a Master Chef of Great Britain, demonstrated his specialist skills with expert knowledge, charm and wit, often referring to his Cornish upbringing, his wife’s persistence, as well as his mum’s ‘bad cooking’ which inspired him to become a chef.

Guests were educated about the process of making chocolate, including the process of grinding the cocoa beans, creating the powder and extracting the cocoa butter from the cocoa bean.

At the end of the demonstration audiences were invited to taste the chocolate creations that had been made right before their eyes.

The first was a dark chocolate orange bar made from 60% cocoa, next was a luxurious white chocolate shell. Other treats included caramel and vanilla chocolates as well as a rich chocolate truffle infused with a punchy citrus flavoured ganache.

Spectators learned about the importance of temperatures when melting chocolate and shaping it, as well as learning that the best way to extract the most flavour from chocolate is to pinch your nose, place the chocolate on the tip of your tongue then push it to the roof of your mouth, as the chocolate begins to melt inhale deeply to allow the oxygen to carry the flavour across all of your taste buds.

During the demonstration, observers enjoyed tasting sessions, asking questions as well as laughing along with Grant who provided an entertaining afternoon of culinary expertise.

Grant joked: ‘I have only come today because my wife and I visited The Globe a while ago after I booked us a weekend away.

‘We got talking to some people about the film festival and my wife, quite forwardly, offered up my services to come along to give a demonstration. I’ll tell you something... I haven’t booked a weekend away since.

‘If I am being completely honest, I was inspired to become a chef because I was fed up with my mum’s bad cooking. She won’t mind me saying that, God rest her soul, but she was a lousy cook.

‘So, when I was 13/14 I began working in kitchens and restaurants. I went to college, qualified, and then went on to work in restaurants all over the country including London. Then, I moved back to Cornwall, met my wife, and the rest is history really.’

After initially training in Cornwall, Grant travelled to London, where he worked for several years in the West End. This included a good spell at luxury London hotel The Dorchester. After that he moved north of the border where he worked at one of Glasgow’s leading restaurants. He then returned to Cornwall, where he married and raised a family.

In 2003 he entered further education and has now been teaching full time for eight years. He currently teaches at the Cornwall College group. He said that he hoped the qualifications he teaches will give young chefs a far better grounding in their vocational development.

The venue in Chagford was full of enthusiasm as well as the heavenly aroma of melted chocolate. Landlady of the pub Mary French, one of the Chagford Film Festival organisers, said: ‘The afternoon has been a great success, and a wonderful addition to the film festival. This year’s festival has been a huge success for local businesses.’

Timothy and Vanessa Garratt, who had been directing festival traffic earlier in the week, said that they thoroughly enjoyed Grant’s demonstration and that it was ‘fantastic’ and ‘very educational’.

Jennifer Millington, breakfast chef and housekeeper at The Globe Inn, said: ‘I found the demonstration was brilliant, I am a keen baker so wanted to learn more about chocolate work and I certainly have done!’

See pages 18 and 31 of the October 6 edition of the Times for more from the Chagford Film Festival.