Chocolate lovers set to gather for Chocolate Meltdown

Oxford’s premier January event — a fundraiser for the Oxford Community Arts Center (OCAC) and Miami’s Richard and Carole Cocks Art Museum (RCCAM) at Miami University featuring plenty of sweet treats — is just around the corner.

This year’s Chocolate Meltdown is set for 1-5 p.m. Jan. 11 in the OCAC. The event attracts more than 1,000 chocoholics from around the Tristate to sample a wide variety of chocolate-themed foods and beverages.

Here’s how it works. When you enter OCAC, purchase tasting tickets priced at $1 each, 6 for $5, 12 for $10, and 24 for $20. Present a ticket to a vendor and receive a sample in return that the vendor judges worth roughly $1. There is no charge for admission to OCAC or to shop directly with vendors.

More than a dozen chocolatiers have signed up to participate in Chocolate Meltdown. Uptown Oxford businesses at Chocolate Meltdown include Redlife Coffee at the Alexander House and Uptown Blends, as well as the Oxford outlets of LaRosa’s and Graeter’s.

Some of the chocolatiers have been making and baking for decades, but three who have signed up for Chocolate Meltdown represent the next generation. James Bigham started selling bread and pastries at Oxford’s Farmers Market eight years ago when he was only 16 years old. Luke Heizer, a 25-year-old whose Luke's Custom Cakes is a fixture in downtown Hamilton, has been baking since he was 12. Emily Mullen is the fourth generation to operate Mullen Dairy and Creamery in Okeana.

The most spectacular display at Chocolate Meltdown is likely to be a three-foot-high, four-tiered fountain of cascading liquid chocolate provided by Lady Belgium Chocolate Fountain. For one ticket, you get to dip a strawberry, cookie, or marshmallow into the fountain.

MOON Co-op, which I serve as treasurer of the Board of Directors for, is happy to help at a fundraiser for OCAC and the art museum. All three organizations contribute to making Oxford a special place to live. But MOON Co-op – like other small businesses in Oxford – has to count every penny. This is especially important for the co-op because it is owned by 1,000 mostly Oxford-area households rather than by a national corporation.

Enter Equal Exchange, MOON’s source of chocolate for Chocolate Meltdown. Like MOON, Equal Exchange is cooperatively owned — and in its case, a producer-owned — co-op, founded in Massachusetts in 1986 by several former managers of food co-ops in New England.

Most Equal Exchange chocolate contains only three ingredients: cacao, sugar and vanilla. Some bars contain a fourth ingredient, such as orange or almond. The organic cacao beans are sourced from small-scale farmers organized into cooperatives, mostly in Peru. The organic raw cane sugar comes from Manduvira co-op, the first farmer-owned sugar mill in Paraguay. The organic vanilla beans come from a co-op in Madagascar.

Co-ops sign on to seven principles, one of which is that cooperatives help each other. As a well-established co-op, Equal Exchange is helping MOON Co-op, and by extension the Oxford community, by providing the chocolate for MOON to have at Chocolate Meltdown at a low cost.

The chocolate from Equal Exchange is about as intensely “chocolatey” as you will find at Chocolate Meltdown. The percentage of cacao ranges from a low of 55% to a high of 92%. In comparison, a Hershey’s bar contains only around 11% cacao, not to mention unspecified chemical additives.

Please stop by and say hi to us at Chocolate Meltdown. MOON Co-op’s helpers at Chocolate Meltdown, who include 13-year-old Miles Dumyahn and Mitzi Ganelin (age withheld), are testimony that the event appeals to chocoholics of all ages. And take our chocoholics’ ultimate challenge by sampling our 92% cacao.

James Rubenstein is president of the Board of Directors for the Oxford Free Press and professor emeritus of geography at Miami University.