How Did a Stockbroker Turned Sociologist Become a Chocolatier?
Here’s How My Past Life Experiences Intersect: Love of Chocolate
Caffeinating, reflecting, and smiling! Photo credit: Cheri Madewell
I find that being an expert in people, rather than an expert in chocolate, is what makes me an excellent chocolatier.
Why?
Because caring about the lived experiences of people makes me work hard at my craft as well as research deeply into all of the aspects of chocolate-making that are upstream from the customer.
I’m a Chocolatier, but before that…
In 2000, I was an art student with long hair, Rage Against the Machine t-shirt, and a bottle of cream soda on the way to Georgia to participate in a protest against American-backed violence in Latin America.
I have a Bachelor's degree in Fine Art and in Sociology, and although they were earned at the same institution, they were conferred seven years apart. In between, I worked for over four years as a stockbroker (I know…). After my Sociology undergraduate studies, I pursued a Master's degree in Sociology culminating in a thesis using qualitative methods to learn about the decision making processes of farmers’ market managers and vendors on whether they would accept WIC & SNAP benefits.
I had a goal of earning my PhD in Rural Sociology with a focus on food and agriculture and, after a year of doctoral studies at The Pennsylvania State University, I dropped out with tons of student loan debt, a vitamin D deficiency and a mysterious case of hepatitis A, and the need to change my life but some deep sadness as well. I didn’t know what I would do with my life, but a PhD wasn’t the way for me to proceed.
Graduate school, especially while at Penn State, is where I really threw myself into cooking for others.
I moved to Texas, worked for the Texas Department of Agriculture as an inspector, volunteered at the Austin Public Library as a computer literacy coach, and joined a group of people to create a community garden in North Austin.
Texas was my food paradise! It is the one place in the world i’m homesick for and it is almost entirely due to the food I ate while living there.
After two years, I moved back to my home state of Indiana and joined Purdue Extension as an Extension Educator in the areas of Health & Human Sciences and Agriculture & Natural Resources. Shortly after getting married to my wife, I relocated to Minneapolis and became affiliated with my third Big Ten University as an Evaluation Specialist with the University of Minnesota.
My time in Minnesota included getting bewildered and exhausted on the Superior Hiking Trail. Photo credit: Cheri Madewell
As a sociologist, I am trained to critically examine systems and institutions and their impacts (intended or unintended) on individuals and environments.
As a person who studied Rural Sociology with a concentration in the Sociology of Agriculture and Food, my preferred system to study is agriculture, particularly the relationship between consumers and producers of food as well as links in the supply chain.
As a former stockbroker, I regularly studied historical prices of stocks, mutual funds, commodities, alongside how companies are evaluated in the market and considered this training as adequate preparation to later become a sociologist who prioritizes labor over wealth.
As an artist, I understand how challenging it is to communicate to others the value of your labor, your voice, and your work versus simply creating ready-made art to make and sell quickly and cheaply.
The throughline for all of these experiences was my love of eating, drinking, working with and, more recently, making chocolate. So whenever people ask me “Hey, how did you become a chocolatier anyway?” I generally reply, “Oh. The usual way.”
In the middle of it all: chocolate
Chocolate is something that a lot of people love yet not all those who love chocolate have considered it more deeply. We tend to associate chocolates as items worthy of gifting or consuming as a luxury, but we are inundated with literal tons of chocolate candies, cookies, cakes, cereals, syrups, dairy products. Chocolate is both luxurious and ubiquitous. How are both possibly true at the same time?
While working with chocolate, I do wrestle with lots of questions related to how cacao is grown and chocolate is made, consumed, and perceived. Photo credit: Cheri Madewell
As my past experiences continued to converge, my curiosity about chocolate grew. The artist in me played with new ingredients and tinkered with recipes. The sociologist in me wondered about where the money was going when I purchase chocolate. The stockbroker in me answered the sociologist by researching cocoa commodities prices. The rural sociologist in me started thinking of the global supply chain and how end consumers are connected to cacao growers.
Be curious about what you eat and who makes it
Ideally, you have a local chocolate shop with people who will happily engage with you much like how you would want to engage with a produce vendor at a farmers market or a butcher in a local meat market. Purchasing from passionate experts is a great way to learn more about your food and also about the steps that brought your food to you. These experts carefully curated their ingredients, perfected their techniques, and hopefully cultivated sustainable and ethical relationships with growers.
In lieu of having a local chocolate shop, search for high-quality chocolate shops online! There are growing numbers of chocolate makers and chocolatiers in the United States and the quality is getting better as the number of makers grow. But, perhaps even more importantly, as the pool of chocolate makers grows, the spread of information grows and transparency becomes normalized. I look forward to the day when a savvy shopper allows their skepticism to control their wallet when they encounter a business of any sort where transparency is devalued.
It is not always easy to get detailed answers about any of your food from a big box supermarket, either.
Labels are the primary source of information for shoppers, but they can be confusing in many ways; sometimes what appears to be informational is actually marketing. This holds true for chocolate as well. When you’re making a chocolate purchase, think clearly about what you’re wanting with that purchase. Do you want to know where the beans come from and how they were grown? Do you want to know if there are any fillers that mask the chocolate profile? Labels can guide you on these journeys. Just don't fall for the notion that “higher means better quality" when it comes to the percentage of cacao content in any given bar. A one-hundred percent bar made with substandard cacao beans is not likely to be as delicious as a 60% bar with premium quality, fine-flavor beans.
My childhood dream, achieved… in a way
It’s funny, though, when I reflect on all the twists and turns of my professional career because they all do have one common thread: education.
Wee little Morgan wanted to be a teacher and a chef! Thirty-five years later, i’m kinda both!
When I was little, I had the idea that I was going to be an art teacher. That was the aim of my youthful arrow and why I earned a Fine Art degree. But, once I was in the courses for education majors, I saw I didn’t fit and felt like I had to give up the idea of being a teacher.
Somehow, I’m lucky. I got to spend many years of my adult life pursuing and sharing education. I have a liberal arts background that introduced me to many topics of inquiry and helped me shape critical thinking skills. Both of these were key to my ongoing learning as an adult and allowed me to become an educator in an informal sense.
When I was even younger, I had an imaginary career as a chef as well!
I never had an inkling that chocolate would be the material way my childhood imagination came into my grownup world!