Chocolatier Who Creates Hand Made Happines
Sookmyungians who had made handmade chocolates for someone can know how sensitive making handmade chocolates well is. In Valentines, chocolates play an important role to deliver love messages. In addition, the word, ‘handmade’ is almost synonymous with ‘devotion’ or ‘with all my heart.’ Then, please imagine the ripple effect when chocolates meet handmade. Now, the Sookmyung Times invites Sookmyungians to the fascinating world of handmade chocolates with chocolatier, Seongmi Kim (Kim). This is made for you. Enjoy your times!
Chocolatier (Chocolate Artist), Seongmi Kim
‘Chocolatier’ came from a French word ‘chocolat’ with a meaning, ‘chocolate.’ Chocolatier is Chocolate Artist who works not only making chocolates but also creating chocolates to works of art through process which bring out a distinctive flavor like blending and addition of sub ingredients with diverse kinds of chocolates. Kim is the first chocolatier of Korea. She introduced the job, chocolatier to Korea at first in 2001. Chocolate work modeled after bottles and boxes of wine ‘Chateau Latour’ is the most memorable work of hers. That’s because the work served as a momentum which had a private chocolate works exhibition for the first time in Korea. She just made that to present for a wine society but by accident, the Luxury Hall manager of Galleria Department Store saw the work and produced a private exhibition. She then made known‘chocolatier’ to Korea.
For Real Happiness
In 1992, studying abroad in England, Kim found one small chocolate store walking on the street in Oxford. She watched a girl who brought plates with chocolates from the kitchen and thought that she would also make chocolates. From that moment, she turned her back on her major, social sciences, and started backpacking for chocolates. She had returned to Korea, but she went studying abroad again for chocolates to find real happiness. “After marriage, I realized that my life is only my responsibility when overcoming IMF. Then, what is the job I do for all my lifetime? First, on the guess that I work throughout life because I love it, I thought seriously about the happiest period and what have liked.” She entered ‘Le Cordon Bleu London’ and could learn about chocolates after elementary and intermediate level process. However, that is not professional and detailed education. So she worked in the dessert department of the Ritz Hotel in London and chocolate shop in Paris without pay. Although it is not formal education, Kim experienced and learned by herself. She answered the question about difficulties in studying abroad, “At that time, Westerners didn’t know well about Korea. Someone who heard my Japanese thought that Korea and Japan are the same nation. One professor wrote my nationality is Japan when I practiced to Hotel.”
Korean Chocolate Studio, Pas de deux
In ballet, a ‘pas de deux’ is a dance sequence for two dancers. Kim said about why she named the studio “Pas de deux,” “Pas de deux is completed when two dancers keep in step perfectly like as one dancer. I named this to present happiness and pleasure of people who give and take chocolates. Also, the name has a lot of meanings like coordination between chocolates and chocolatier and harmony between Pas de deux and graduates of Pas de deux, choart.” She has handmade chocolates lectures in her studio, Pas de deux. Choart which means Chocolat and Art is a title for people who graduated from Pas de deux studio’s formal 17 week process, Savoir pere eight times a year, a seminar four times a year, and passed an examination of qualifications.
Kim is the first person to develop Korean style handmade chocolates. Also, she tried to develop combinative recipes between Korean and European style in chocolate lectures of Pas de deux with trainees. They are creating a culture named ‘Korean chocolate.’ She said, “When we think chocolates are one of the food cultures, experiences and remembrances of new flavors are harmonized, made, and continued based on our culinary customs. In the present, Korean chocolate culture is a basic step in its first generation which contacts with chocolate and starts learning regularly. Of course, it is small and tiny now. However, if experiences and remembrances about Korean handmade chocolate are piled up continually, eventually, those will become culture and can flow variously.”
Chocolate is a just happiness to Kim. She started as a chocolatier to be happy and is continuing because of Happiness. Her juicy and sweet chocolate studio, Pas de deux are working and walking to deliver love, devotion, and culture. In the present, she creates handmade happiness called chocolate.
