Hail to carob, the not chocolate
-
Carob Bars topped with walnuts and carob chips and Carob Oatmeal Snack Cake.
Share with others:
For those of us with chocolate allergies, April is the cruelest month.
No chocolate eggs wrapped in colorful foil.
No chocolate bunnies to nibble from the ears down.
No 1-pound, handmade, fruit-and-nut-filled chocolate eggs to slice and share. Or not.
Oh, the deprivation. Not to mention the self-control.
But what's good for the character can be good for the body, because carob -- a chocolate substitute -- has no butterfat or caffeine. While chocolate comes from the cacao bean, which is about 50 percent fat, carob comes from a fat-free pod.
Still, it's not like you can walk into a store and order a carob bunny, unless it's a pet store and you're shopping for the dog (chocolate can be fatal to Fido). But if you have to or want to limit fat and caffeine, there are ready-made carob bars and other treats in area groceries. At the East End Food Co-op, for example, you can buy carob-covered rice cakes, carob malt balls, carob-flavored soy milk, carob chips, carob-covered ice cream sandwiches and fudge-like carob-nut "energy squares."
The co-op and Nicholas Coffee sell World's Best Cookie's vegan organic oatmeal carob chip cookie, a big, hearty one that's way more than a mouthful to say and eat. It's made near Wheeling, W.Va., using no salt or refined sugar -- and still tastes great.
Vegan caterer Jessica Earhart of Iron Betty Sweets makes a raw carob almond fudge and a raw carob pie, the latter made with avocados, agave nectar, carob, almonds and dates.
"Carob is really great for raw desserts, and raw diets are growing in popularity," she said in an email. She makes carob treats for dogs, too.
At The Zenith vegetarian cafe and antiques and art gallery on the South Side, you can order a pot of tea in seven carob-flavored "mocha" varieties. The Mocha L'Orange, with carob, barley malt, orange peel, blackberry leaf, licorice root, chicory and vanilla, is rich and complex, smooth and chocolately, like liquid dessert.
Carob is the fruit of the autumn-flowering, drought-resistant, evergreen carob tree Ceratonia siliqua, which can grow to 55 feet tall.
First Published April 21, 2011 12:00 am
