Chocolate should always include a little fantasy and alchemy in the recipe, so it’s no surprise to learn that famed Parisian chocolatier Debauve et Gallais, was founded by Sulpice Debauve, a pharmacist to the court of Louis XVI, whose signature chocolate ‘pistoles’ (named after gold coins) were developed as a way of making bitter medicines more palatable for Marie-Antoinette. Knowing of her taste for drinking chocolate, Debauve mixed finely ground cocoa powder with almond milk as a disguise for the medicine, which he set in flat, coin-shaped discs, thus creating the original edible chocolate.
