It seems to me that now is the golden age of soaps. Every lifestyle shop worth its salt peddles it in large varieties – made from mint or oranges, in colours ranging from blue to pink, and with additives like pieces of cinnamon or bits of strange smelling algae. Are we heading to the renaissance of personal hygiene? Or has the humble soap finally acquired the status of a signature perfume?

In my quest for soapy adventure, I go to La Sultane de Saba, one of the most popular spas in Switzerland, where the country’s well heeled head, for treatments with the savon noir, literally black soap. Blackish in colour, this soap is actually a cream made entirely of pressed olives and nothing else and is celebrated for its purification properties all over the Orient.

Abundance of olives
As I enter La Sultane de Saba, I am greeted by Mado and Peter Meyer the ambassadors of savon noir. Mado explains to me that she was born in Egypt and spent part of her youth there, but she had forgotten all about the black soap when she left Egypt to come to Switzerland. Then once she picked up a jar of soap in a Swiss shop and realised that it smelt just like the product used to clean floors in Egypt. As I sat back in my chair looking horrified at this story, she quickly clarified, that this speaks not of the savon noir’s detergent qualities, but its wonderful smell and the abundance of olives in the region. This is how she rediscovered the savon noir which is now the most popular product in her shop and its well packaged, quality controlled version is slowly making its way into discerning showers around the globe.

Black soap is equal amounts soap and tradition. It is the most important part of the Oriental hamam, a ritual where both men and women spend time soaking, exfoliating, scrubbing, detoxifying and relaxing in a public bath. Mado points out: “Women and men go to the hamam not to bathe but to purify.” The savon noire plays an extremely important role in this ritual. It is the ultimate bathing pleasure and here we are not in savon de Marseille land, we are talking about the goodness of cold pressed pure olives that make your senses tingle and your skin smell deliciously earthy.

La Sultane de Saba makes the savon noir in different flavours, all with eucalyptus which acts as a natural preservative. It has a fresh, clean and minty fragrance with the same olfactory satisfaction as the smell of rain on parched earth. For a quick hamam at home, wet your body with warm water, scoop a generous quantity of soap in your hand with a spatula and rub vigorously all over the body before exfoliating with a loofah or preferably the kessa glove, a mitt scraper used frequently in North Africa. The olive and eucalyptus in it leaves your skin tingling for a long time after and its earthy smell stays with you. And so I leave, converted, heavy glass pot of savon noir in hand, looking forward to my shower ritual.
(Savon noir is available in all leading pharmacies and lifestyle shops around the world. For Le Sultane de Saba’s list of shops visit www.lasultanedesaba.com)

Hedonism of white chocolate
My first truly unforgettable chocolate dish was salty. A Mexican classmate had invited me to dinner and prepared his nation’s favourite dish, pollo al chocolate, chicken in chocolate sauce. This classmate had also taken me to the screening of the most popular Mexican film of all time, Como Agua Para Chocolate (Like Water For Chocolate), a story about Tita, a young girl who is not allowed to marry her lover and expresses her passions through cooking that has magical qualities.

So Pedro and I swapped recipes – I took home the exotic chicken with chocolate and he took home the equally exotic chicken with cinnamon. So my enduring relationship with chocolate started but it became a real passion only after I was introduced to the hedonism of white chocolate. Eating white chocolate is like eating butter, only a lot headier.

If there was a beauty competition between white chocolate and dark chocolate, according to me dark would win for looks and white would win for substance. My pastry chef friend from Nice, Patrick Salibat, whom I turn to for chocolate notes, differs. He says, true lovers of chocolate like only dark chocolate, in his case a dark Manjari from Valrhona with 74 per cent cacao. But he agrees with me that white chocolate tastes divine and sinking your teeth into a white chocolate bar promises unparalleled satisfaction, because it has no bitterness from cocoa, its taste comes from pure cocoa butter, powdered milk, sugar and a hint of vanilla.

It’s true that the origins of white chocolate are not steeped in mystery or passion like its darker counterpart. Nestle came up with white chocolate as late as the early 1930s, in order to use excess cocoa butter. Critics insist that white chocolate is not chocolate, but for white chocolate lovers nothing can replace the feeling of melting sweet white milky chocolate in the mouth, not bitter and not sharp. It’s an instant mood lifter, an elixir. So I convince Patrick to share with me his gourmet recipe for white chocolate lovers, a recipe that almost no traditional cafe or restaurant serves.

HOT WHITE CHOCOLATE

500g white chocolate (many companies including Nestle make white cooking chocolate, but the best are the white chocolate bars from Valrhona)
250g milk
250g cream (liquid 33 per cent fat)
Or
500g white chocolate
420g milk
80g butter
Or the healthy substitute
500g white chocolate
500g infused tea

Boil all the liquid ingredients, then turn off the heat, put in the chocolate and let the chocolate melt (the fire has been turned off) and taste. You could put in additional flavours while boiling the cream and milk or even if you’ve decided to make it only with milk. For example Assam tea, Darjeeling, Oolong, Macha, or green tea powder. Don’t hesitate to add in herbs like verveine, lemon grass or rose. For the recipe with butter, put in the butter after the chocolate has melted in the boiling milk. It improves the taste and the preparation stays intact and avoids becoming clumpy. For the diet recipe, use only water to infuse the tea, do not use milk or any other substance with a fat content.

So as the chocolate wars continue, and white and black fight it out, I head to the kitchen and make myself a pot. I curl up on the sofa, it’s a drizzly Sunday afternoon and sip my freshly brewed white hot chocolate with tea. Sublime.

Jahnvi Dameron Nandan is the author of Tokyo Style File. A self-confessed travelista with the budget issues of a fashionista, she is now working on her new book on design.

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