Hazelnuts and chocolate, strawberries and chocolate, coffee and chocolate. Some things just naturally go together. I recently gained a greater appreciation for another magical match made in heaven: chocolate and dulce de leche.

Dulce de leche is a rich and decadently thick sauce used in many pastries and desserts. Once you taste it, it’s probably easier to name the things it doesn’t go with! I first heard about it after my father remarried in 1983. Over the years I’ve learned so much from my Mama Maria, who is of Sicilian descent from Argentina, about cooking and baking, and some of her favorite items from South America like mate and dulce de Leche. But I didn’t quite embrace its true significance until we were recently in Santiago, Chile visiting my step sister Ana living there on a special FDA assignment.

I always thought dulce de leche was a Spanish version of caramel. Well, yes and no. Yes, in that it has a flavor similar to caramel and both sweets are made from a process called carmelization. This is when sugars in a food product, like milk, begin to turn brown when heated beginning at about 320 degrees F. No in that you achieve the end results in two totally different ways. Both recipes, though, require much patience.

In caramel, you slowly heat sugar, and then add water, milk, butter and vanilla flavor to make an assortment of goodies. For dulce de leche, you use condensed or sweetened milk. This is milk that has had almost half of its water removed and then sugar added. Personally, I find dulce de leche not to be as sweet as chewy caramel.

When you have a couple of hours where you can carefully and safely keep an eye on a boiling pot of water, you can make some of this decadent, silky sauce yourself. It is surprisingly simple, but you’ll need 2 hours for soft dulce de leche and about 3 hours for a firm sauce. Here’s a website that you can go to for instructions on how to make your own. Decorated and filled jars make wonderful gifts for friends and family with sweet teeth. Or you may want to bake a batch of some alfajores, traditional Argentine cookies that, when made properly, melt in your mouth.

As with many foods, dulce de leche evolved in other parts of the world, such as in Northern and Eastern Europe, the Philippines, and in other parts of South America. In Peru and Chile, for example, it is called manjar. Let’s hear it for convergent evolution!

Once you taste it, you’ll understand why its name means “milk honey or milk candy” in Spanish. I now know why Maria gets a sparkle in her eye whenever she hears those three little words: dulce de leche! Once you experience it, let me know if you do, too!

Kraft’s recent acquisition of Cadbury (which includes Green & Black’s) brings to mind other mergers that have occurred in recent history.

When I first began offering chocolate tasting programs in Berkeley, California in the early 1980’s, I fondly recall that there were still family members on the board of Ghirardelli Chocolate. Times have definitely changed. Today this historic American manufacturer it is owned by the Swiss chocolate maker Lindt.

After 40 years of ownership, the Campbell Soup Company sold Godiva Chocolates in December 2007 to the Turkish company Yildiz Holding of Turkey for $850 million. The Godiva managers I speak with in Portland seem very happy with this change of guard. It is as if they finally feel like they are being given the attention and resources they deserve by their parent company.

Nestlé’s owns Perugina, the chocolate company that originated in the Etruscan town of Perugia, Italy and is famous for their Baci confections.

Then there is Hershey that now owns the originally Berkeley, California based Scharffenberger Chocolates.

In the fall of 2006, I had the good fortune to attend a class at Draegers in San Mateo, California with Dr. Robert Steinberg, one of the co-founders of Scharffenberger Chocolates. Personally I remember the excitement of the emergence of Scharffenberger back in the mid-1990’s- what was at the time the first chocolate manufacturer in 50 years. Anyone who has ever gone on one of their factory tours might recall the tour guide proudly announcing that they make in one year what Hershey makes in a day. So, like many, I was very disappointed at the 2005 merger of this giant American manufacturer with this small American artisan one that helped bring chocolate to an entirely new level. A year later Hershey bought Ashland, Oregon based Dagoba.

I realize that loyal customers of companies can be upset by such changes. So at the end of class I asked Dr. Steinberg how he felt about it all. I can still recall his big smile and sparkling eyes, as he stated that he actually disliked all the marketing and the other business aspects of running the company. He was now free to do what he really loves- once again concentrating on the chocolate itself. Coming directly from him, those words made me feel somewhat better.

I somehow feel that he would have been disapppointed to see the eventual close of his Berkeley factory which would move to Illinois. It’s hard to imagine that those personally selected Old World pieces of chocolate machinery by himself and John Scharffenberger are still cranking out all that chocolate that is being marketed across the country. It is fortunate, perhaps, that this phase of the merger happened after Dr. Steinberg passed on in 2009.

Yes, there are positives and negatives to mergers. Yet, it bothers me how the “genealogy” of the chocolate industry seems to have far fewer branches in it these days. Let’s see how this all plays out in the coming years.

Who makes your favorite chocolate bars? How have you felt about these mergers?