A recent story in The New York Times Travel section about Brussels and its history of chocolate making brought me back to my first heavenly encounter with real chocolate and the man who introduced me to it.
I called him Uncle Shamsheh but, in fact, he was really my mother's first cousin. Shamsheh had emigrated to Brussels in 1932 in hopes of a better life than the one he had left behind in Chrznow, Poland. In Brussels, he fell in love, married, and had a daughter. Then Germany invaded Poland and, in short order, The Netherlands and Belgium. One day, while he was off working to earn a little bread, there was an aktion. When he returned home, a neighbour intercepted him with a warning not to return home. He never saw his wife and daughter again.
She was four years old the last time he saw her. I was four when Shamsheh arrived on a visit to Canada with the thought to moving to Montreal. After all, he was without family in Brussels, spoke French and, from the first sight of each other, we were madly in love.
I had been having a difficult time following the birth of my brother. His arrival forced me to face a terrible truth - I was no longer the centre of my parent's universe. But Shamsheh showed no interest in the baby. He had eyes only for me. And to prove it he brought me two amazing gifts: a large walkie-talkie doll and chocolates, delicious creamy chocolates.
It took me some forty years to learn that the explosion of flavour that had melted on my four-year-old tongue was a Godiva confection. It tasted nothing like the Cadbury Milk chocolate bars my mother would bring home as a treat. Absolutely nothing tasted as good. But it wasn't until 1990 when I went to visit Shamsheh in Brussels (he never did move to Canada) that the memory of that first encounter came flooding back.
We were taking a walk after a lovely lunch of osso bucco in one of those tiny little restaurants that no tourist could ever find. Shamsheh lived in the heart of the city, around the corner from the Place de la Monnaie, and just blocks from Brussels' impressive Grand-Place. Our week together was almost over and Shamsheh seemed a little agitated as he steered me through the narrow streets that eventually spilled into the Grand-Place. He stopped to catch his breath and then, smiled proudly as he took me by the arm and led me towards a store. The awning read: Godiva Chocolatier 1926. I was unfamiliar with the name.
On our wanderings during that week, we had passed several chocolate shops. They had names like Leonidas and Neuhaus, and front windows that slid open onto the street so you needn’t enter the shop in order to indulge yourself. Buying chocolates this way was infinitely more elegant than ordering frites and a hot dog from a chip wagon.
The Godiva shop, however, had no open window onto the street, only a door to enter. Inside, as a scintillating aroma insinuated itself, a fastidious woman wearing white cotton gloves stood behind the counter delicately transposing perfectly-formed chocolates from a tray in her hand onto a tray under a glass counter display. Everywhere I looked, chocolates were lined up as neat as regiments of soldiers. Beneath the glass counters, tray after tray after tray were laid out with such precision, you could practically hear the marching band.
While I was busy gaping at the luscious layout, my uncle had taken on the air of a man who knows what he wants. He pulled himself up to his full height of 5’7” and in a voice deeper than I was accustomed to, addressed the woman who had deigned to put down her tray and acknowledge us.
Shamsheh instructed the woman to fill a two kilo box with pralines, pralines simplement. He pointed at a section and she began to fill the bottom of the box. Then, placing a foil on top, she moved to the next counter, to add a new layer.
Non, non, non. S’il vous plait, madam, said Shamsheh, a rigid index finger directing the woman to another counter. Under his watchful eye, there were no further transgressions and I was presented with a two kilo box of Godiva chocolate to bring home to Montreal. But not before my uncle had the woman offer me a choice from the still open box. I hesitated until the woman delicately nudged me on with an Ahem.
I placed a chocolate on my tongue and as it melted, it sent out little waves of pleasure. For a moment I was a little girl again. And I needn’t have fretted over what to choose. These were real Godiva chocolates hand-picked by my Uncle Shamsheh. How could I go wrong?
http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/12/25/travel/brussels-the-chocolate-trail.html?nl=travel&emc=tda1
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