We don't want to waste chocolate so anything that we don't
put in the freezer and isn't ready to be rolled into truffles,
we'll have to finish it. So that's what we're trying to do right
now. I'm Jayson Lynch the current President for the
Laboratory for Chocolate Science. Here we are in our office.
Behind me are 600 pounds of chocolate that we just
ordered from Guittard. We use this chocolate to run almost
all of our events. From chocolate tastings to finals hot
chocolate; truffle making classes. We're an MIT student
We're a group of chocolate enthusiasts. We love to eat
chocolate, experiment with chocolate, learn about the
science, history and politics of chocolate. Everyone who
cares about chocolate finds their way here for one reason
or another. So LCS was actually an accident. I found this
random place online that was willing to sell me 50 pounds of
chocolate for $1.50 a pound and I didn't have any idea what
I would do with it but I couldn't really pass up that sort of
deal so I purchased 50 pounds of chocolate, showed up at
Senior House and said, "What am I going to do with it?"
So I invited all of my friends over, got a couple gallons of
cream and said to bring whatever is in your pantries;
alcohol and extracts and spices etc.. We got 50 pounds of
chocolate who cares if we mess up, we'll try it and see what
happens, and it was fun. So that was the truffle party. And it
was so much fun that we did it again a couple months later,
and the third time that we did this I started having random
people coming up to me in my dorm saying, "I don't know
you but this looks like fun, can I come?" And I said, "Sure,"
and then somebody said, "Why isn't this a club?" and I said,
"That's a good question, I'll go fill out some paperwork."
And that's how LCS actually got started. So that's the first
one going in and then we're going to work on the second
batch. Perfect. A lot of people find cooking a little scary,
chocolate a little scary, high-end chocolate things like
truffles they seem very imposing they are things you pay
a lot of money for and you get the classic set of flavors.
So part of the point of LCS is to break down that wall of
imposing ooooh culinary, high end excitement and turn it
into something that was approachable to students; that
people could try out and basically make their own.
OK I'm making one with wasabi, garlic powder and banana
extract. Cinnamon and red pepper flakes. Bacon and
allspice. Love of chocolate really cuts across a lot of other
interests. So you have a lot of different majors and really
people from all kinds of backgrounds who come and they
like doing chocolate. And it's been really nice to have that
kind of cross-connection. There are people here who are
interested in the science of chocolate, the economics of
chocolate; all sorts different things. Our former President
Anna Walden Brown, spent two summers in Ecuador
studying the impact of the chocolate industry on the soil
conditions there. Another one of our members was more
interested in the economics of chocolate and spent some
time studying the world trade in chocolate and how that
impacted international markets. Probably the thing that has
caused me most to go, "Oh my gosh I started something
and it actually matters to people." I was talking to somebody
about six months ago who said he was talking to an
undergrad the other day and discovered that now a sign
that you're a real MIT graduate is that you know how to
make truffles. Who would have thought of that ten years
ago. It's cool, it's a life skill and it's tasty.
You want to put some sprinkles on this one? Sure.
I'll admit I never expected it to still be here ten years later.
It was kind of a joke at the time, even our constitution is
humorous. We have a non-discrimination clause in it: We're
not allowed to discriminate based on a preference for dark,
milk, or white chocolate. And that was about the attitude I
had going in and creating this club, is that this is here,
because what the heck, it'll be a fun thing for a couple of
terms. And it's still going because the people who've joined
and the people who've taken it. The whole point of this club
is just to give you the confidence to go do cool things.